MOSCOW, October 11 (Itar-Tass) - The destruction of chemical weapons in Syria is going smoothly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the 8th East Asia Summit (EAS) forum in Brunei.

“We are grateful to all representatives of the EAS member countries that have expressed support for the Russian-American initiative on Syrian chemical weapons destruction,” he said. “The work is going smoothly. We are doing everything so that the Syrian government continued to cooperate in good faith with the inspectors of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations.”

“We hope that those who have a direct influence on various groups of the opposition will also induce it to abstain from any provocations that could disrupt chemical disarmament and again provoke the talk about the need of external intervention,” said Lavrov.