ST. PETERSBURG, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Defense Minister Tuesday denied media reports that Russia was carrying out work at Syrian ports with the aim of transferring its Black Sea Fleet to the Mideast country.
Sergei Ivanov said new bases for the fleet would be built in Russia, including at the port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea.
Ivanov said the government allocated over 1 billion rubles ($37.4 million) annually to build these bases in Russia.
"Last year we built more than 30 facilities," he said.
Kommersant, a respected Russian daily, said Friday that Russia had started dredging at a Syrian port where it maintains a logistical supply point with a possible eye to turning it into a full-fledged naval base for the country's Black Sea Fleet.
The Defense Ministry categorically denied the report, and said the supply point in Tartus, 250 kilometers (about 160 miles) from the Syrian capital, Damascus, would be used in its present capacity in the future.
"This is an absolutely false report that has no foundation whatsoever," a ministry spokesman said.
Russia's Black Sea Fleet currently uses a range of naval facilities in the Ukrainian region of Crimea under a 1997 agreement that allowed Russia to continue its presence in its neighboring former Soviet republic for rent of $93 million per year.
The fleet is scheduled to withdraw in 2017, but Ukraine has recently voiced concerns that Russia is not paying enough for the facilities and also demanded that a new agreement be signed on inventorizing the bases. Russia has said it will make no concessions over rent or withdrawing the fleet and talks have stalled.
