MOSCOW, April 03. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia will be guided by the UN Security Council decisions to prevent provocations during chemical disarmament in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a ministerial meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Moscow on Thursday, April 3.
“There have been many reports about terrorist threats associated with the removal and further destruction of chemical weapons in Syria,” the minister said. “We take such information very seriously and work with our American colleagues on a daily basis so that they could use all their influence [with the opposition] to prevent such provocations.”
“There was an episode that eventually pushed [the sides] towards the agreement on the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons when an obvious provocation in August of last year involved the use of chemical weapons by oppositionists who later laid the blame on the government. They are now trying to use the humanitarian situation to accuse the Syrian leadership of inaction, thus justifying armed interference in order to prevent, as they say, a humanitarian catastrophe,” Lavrov said.
“We are committed to a peaceful resolution in accordance with the UN Security Council decisions in order to prevent provocations in connection with the chemical disarmament in Syria. And we will use them for guidance,” Lavrov said.
He said there were many those wishing to invade Syria and “they are trying to use different pretexts for that”.
Lavrov said he did not see “effective measures on the part of external actors to stop the terrorist threat in Syria”.
“Our position is that terrorist manifestations must be stopped immediately,” the minister said, commenting on a new attack on a city in Syria by an al-Qaeda-related group. “The UN Security Council has stated its position on this issue many times, but we have not seen effective measures by external actors to stop the terrorist threat,” Lavrov said.