BISHKEK, September 13 (Itar-Tass) - Uzbekistan supports Russia’s initiative to place chemical weapons in Syria under international control, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said in his speech at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit here on Friday.

“However, if Syria had put forward this initiative, the world community would have taken this step in a more favourable way,” he believes.

“We find it necessary to settle the Syrian conflict in political ways,” the Uzbek president noted. “We oppose any attempts to spread the crisis in Syria outside that country,” Karimov said.