MOSCOW, November 17 (Itar-Tass) — Syrian oppositionists are getting increasingly more weapons from neighboring countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday after talks with the visiting EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.
“It’s an open secret that groups of armed people with the agendas very different from reforms and democracy began to play a permanently broadening role in those events along with the peaceful demonstrators, whose aspirations and demands we understand and support,” Lavrov said.
“These armed groups have the agendas related to inter-ethnic and clan interests,” he said.
“These people continue getting ever greater amounts of weaponry from across the border and no one takes the trouble to conceal the fact,” Lavrov said. “The arms arrive via clandestine channels from Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.”
He recalled an episode aired by the Euronews channel where the newly formed Syrian Liberation Army was shown in the process of attacking a building.
“Just everything was blazing there,” Lavrov said. “No doubt, if the Syrian opposition continues pursuing such methods, they will bring about a full-scale civil war.”