MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s defense minister said Wednesday that chemical weapons in Syria must be seized from the rebels as well as the government.
“It’s necessary to remove such weapons from the militants and destroy [them],” Sergei Shoigu told reporters after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.
The defense minister stopped short of outright blaming the Syrian opposition for a sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of people and injured thousands more in a suburb outside Damascus in August, but said the attack was a result “of what happens if chemical weapons fall into the hands of terrorists.”
Syrian President Bashar Assad blamed rebel forces for the August 21 attack, though many Western officials interpreted results of a United Nations investigation as evidence that the Syrian government was likely responsible.
It remains unclear how much access Syria’s fragmented rebel movement has had to chemical weapons. A recent New York Times article cited an unnamed Western diplomat as saying that several chemical weapons sites were within rebel-held territory or close to fighting lines.
The Syrian government is now cooperating with a Russia-brokered UN deal to give up its chemical weapons stockpiles for destruction by November 1, a project that Shoigu said Wednesday his country was ready to consider participating in, if asked.
