Russia said on Friday it was not making new deliveries of attack helicopters to Syria and has only carried out repairs of helicopters sent there many years ago.

Russia said on Friday it was not making new deliveries of attack helicopters to Syria and has only carried out repairs of helicopters sent there many years ago.

"There are no new supplies of Russian-made attack helicopters to Syria," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that "planned repairs were carried out earlier on helicopters supplied to Syria many years ago."

The ministry statement reasserted Russia's position that "all our military and technical cooperation with Syria is limited to the supply of defensive weapons."
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday insisted that Russia only supplied anti-air defence systems to Syria, not "things used to fight peaceful civilians."

On Tuesday, Russia and the US traded accusations over supplying the rivals in the Syrian crisis.
Lavrov said Washington was supplying the rebels, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Russia of fuelling the violence by sending attack helicopters to Syria.

US President Barack Obama is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at next week's Group of 20 summits in Los Cabos, Mexico.