RUSSIA TO ISSUE SEPARATE STATEMENT ON CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN SYRIA

G8 summit in Northern Ireland

RIA Novosti. Alexei Nikolskiy
18:32 18/06/2013

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LOUGH ERNE, June 18 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will issue a separate
statement on the use of chemical weapons in Syria as an attachment
to the G8 joint declaration, underscoring the divergence of opinions
on the issue among the participants of the summit, a senior Russian
diplomat said Tuesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the statement would
clarify the Russian position on several aspects of the G8 document,
including the investigation of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

He redismissed Western claims that Assad’s forces used chemical
weapons against the armed opposition as unproven, and said a new
investigation involving a team of independent international experts
must be launched to determine the validity of such claims.

US President Barack Obama last week authorized deliveries of
unspecified types of weaponry to the Syrian rebels following the
claims that Washington now possessed reliable evidence indicating
that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons many times
during the two-year civil war.

The Syrian government called the claims “a statement full of lies
based on fabricated information,” while Moscow said that the evidence
presented by Washington was “unconvincing” and warned that providing
military assistance to Syrian rebels could hamper efforts to convene
a peace conference on Syria that Russia and the United States proposed
jointly on May 7.

From: A. Papazian