Hillary Clinton warns Russia over Syria

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has again urged Moscow to cut all military ties with Damascus and join the international community in coming up with a solution to end the violence in Syria.

She told reporters in Washington that Moscow said it wanted peace and stability restored in Syria and claimed to have vital interests in the Middle East and relationships that it wanted to keep. "They put all that at risk if they do not move more constructively right now," she said.

Mrs Clinton's remarks came a day after she accused Moscow of sending attack helicopters to Damascus, a claim vehemently rejected on Wednesday by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

On a visit to Tehran, Mr Lavrov insisted that Russia was "not supplying Syria or any other country with items which can be used against peaceful protesters, unlike the United States, which regularly supplies weapons to the region."