Middle Eastern leaders flood to Moscow for Syrian talks, aerospace salon

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to host the Jordanian King and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in Moscow on Aug. 25 to discuss the Syrian crisis and take part in a showcase of Russia's military industry.

Jordanian King Abdullah II and the strongman of the United Arab Emirates, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, will visit Moscow one day before Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi arrives in the Russian capital to attend the Maks-2015 military salon.
 
Despite foreign interest in the Russian space and defence industries, no international contracts are expected to be signed during the salon, a spokesman for Russia's state defence import-export company Rosoboronexport, Vyacheslav Davydenko, told AFP last week.
 
Middle Eastern government delegations have been flooding into Moscow in recent weeks and days, with a Syrian opposition delegation tolerated by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad arriving on Aug. 23 for talks on the crisis in their war-torn country.    

Iranian officials are also expected in Moscow this week to finalise negotiations for Tehran's purchase of S-300 air defence systems from Russia, much to the dismay of the United States and Israel.    

The visits come as Russia, one of the few remaining allies of the Assad regime in Syria, has renewed diplomatic efforts to find a resolution to the four-year civil war that has claimed some 240,000 lives.
 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently hosted his Saudi and Iranian counterparts in an effort to push a plan for a broader grouping than the current US-led coalition to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which would include Syria's government and its allies.    

Assad's opponents have...