Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** Russian Jews tell Israel not to compromise.  The Russian Jewish Congress (RJC) has sought to counter a letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by 100 influential American Jews.  The letter from the American Jews urged Netanyahu to make territorial concessions to the Palestinians to secure peace. 

In a move timed to coincide with US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Israel, the counter-letter from 100 Russian Jews, initiated by the RJC, said:

"We believe that the head of the Israeli government should only take decisions in this most important matter on the basis of his own understanding of the situation and in the interests of his country's citizens, rather than under external pressure, whoever it comes from: the global public opinion, the US leadership or American Jews, even influential ones.”

The signatories to the Russian letter include RJC president Yuriy Kanner, Alfa-Grupp co-owner Mikhail Fridman, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia Aleksandr Boroda, chief rabbi of Moscow and president of the Conference of European Rabbis Pinkhas Goldshmidt, the poet Vladimir Vishnevskiy, and people's artist of the Russian Federation Tamara Gverdtsiteli.

*** India’s defence secretary shows anger with UK.  On 8 April, India called off bilateral defence talks with the UK, due to start the next day.  The reason given was that Defence Secretary Shashikant Sharma was too busy with parliamentary work.  However, diplomatic sources are in little doubt that the real reason for the late cancellation was Indian anger with the UK over the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) adopted last week. 

India, which is the world’s largest importer of arms, wanted the UK to support its demands for safeguards for importing nations.  India also wanted tight provisions on the supply of weapons to insurgent groups.

*** Russia continues to take a cautiously relaxed attitude to Korean crisis.  The Russian Defence Ministry is said to be “carefully watching the development of the situation” on the Korean Peninsula and to be ready to respond to any escalation, but Russian military sources say that troops in its Eastern Military District have not been put on heightened alert as a result of the crisis. 

Speaking in London on 10 April, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said "there is a chance that everything will calm down".  He also said: "There are no disagreements with the USA on North Korea”, but he added: "One just should not frighten anyone with military manoeuvres.”