MUNICH (AP) – The Latest on the security conference in Munich (all times local):
10:50 a.m.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has drawn a link between the terrorist threat and the influx of migrants to Europe.
“Under (the) disguise of refugees, hundreds and thousands of extremists are infiltrating other countries,” he said. “Sometimes these are people with different culture who would like to get benefits and do nothing. There is a real threat of the destruction of the destruction of a single economic space followed by cultural space and even the very European identity.”
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10:40 a.m.
Russia’s prime minister has insisted that there’s no evidence his country is bombing civilians in Syria after his French counterpart called for an end to such attacks.
Government forces, aided by a Russian bombing campaign, are trying to encircle rebels in Syria’s largest city Aleppo and cut off their supply route to Turkey.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, speaking alongside Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev at a security conference in Munich, said France respects Russia’s interests but “to return to the path of peace and discussion, the bombing of civilian populations must cease.”
Medvedev said Saturday that “there is no evidence of our bombarding civilians even though everyone is accusing us; that’s just not true.” He added that “we need an exchange of information, our military have to be in constant contact.”
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10:30 a.m.
Russia’s prime minister is accusing the West of rekindling the Cold War, saying sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea and new moves by the NATO alliance “only aggravate” tensions.
Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin told the same Munich Security Conference in 2007 that the West’s building of a missile defense system risked restarting the Cold War, and that now “the picture is more grim; the developments since 2007 have been worse than anticipated.”
“NATO’s policies related to Russia remain unfriendly and opaque – one could go so far as to say we have slid back to a new Cold War,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s 2016 or if we live in 1962.”