Ba'ath party

Russian-Turkish relations are very rich, both in terms of contacts at the highest level and their substantive agenda, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on March 31. 

Speaking at a meeting of the Moscow-based think tank Valdai Discussion Club, Lavrov said the two countries are able to bring out solutions, even on issues on which the parties have almost opposite views.

The 40 mm M99 grenades - far heavier than the tear gas canisters used by police forces around the world to control civil unrest - arrived in four shipments in 2009, BIRN reveals.

A decade later, they were used by Iraqi government forces to disperse anti-government protesters in the Iraqi capital, to deadly effect.