MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th February, 2021) There has been no secret clause involving supplies of the Russian-made COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, to Syria as part of a Russian-brokered prisoner swap with Israel, a media source told state-run news agency SANA, indicating that such "fabricated" information aims to insult the country.
Late on Friday, Israeli media reported, citing a military censor, that Israel agreed to finance millions of doses of Russia's COVID-19 vaccine to be administrated among Syrian citizens.
In response, SANA reported, citing the source, that such information related to the receipt of COVID-19 vaccines from Israel "aim to defame Syria and distort the patriotic and humanitarian side of the process."
On Thursday, SANA reported an exchange of prisoners between the two countries under the mediation of Moscow, which resulted in the release of two Syrian citizens, Mohammed Ahmad Hussein and Tarik al-Obeidan, from Israeli prisons, with both of them having returned in their villages in the Syrian province of Quneitra.
As part of the deal, Syrian activist Nihal al-Maqt was also freed in return for a 25-year-old Israel woman, who entered Quneitra by mistake. According to Israel's state-owned broadcaster, KAN, the women had already returned home. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for the assistance in returning an Israeli citizen from Syria.
Syrian media previously reported that Dhiyab Qahmuz was expected to become another prisoner to be released, but the Palestinian Prisoners' Society eventually said that he refused to participate in the swap if returned to Syria, but not to his home village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
In April 2019, Russia, which plays a key role in settling the deep-rooted internal crisis in Syria for years, mediated another prisoner swap operation between the two countries, during which the body of Zachary Baumel, an Israel Defense Forces' soldier who was killed in the 1982 Sultan Yacoub battle, was returned in exchange for the release of prisoners.
In late January, Syria approved the country's admission to the WHO-led COVID-19 vaccine procurement and distribution initiative, the COVAX Facility, to gain access to the vaccines against the coronavirus.
