Russia warns West against attempts to oust Syria's Assad
by Joseph
Earnest April 29, 2013
Newscast
Media MOSCOW—Russia has warned the
West against using a search for chemical weapons in Syria as an attempt
to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
"There are governments and outside players that believe that all
means are appropriate [to be used] to overthrow the Syrian regime,"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
Referring to the use of chemical weapons by foreign-backed militants
on March 19 near the city of Aleppo, where 25 people were killed and 86
injured, Lavrov criticized UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his
call on a UN fact-finding mission to investigate unproven claims about
the use of chemical weapons in Syria in December 2012.
"This demand by the [UN]
secretary-general with reference to a forgotten episode reminds us a
great deal of attempts in Syria to introduce a practice analogous to
that which existed in Iraq, when they were looking for weapons of mass
destruction there," Lavrov added.
The Syrian government requested top UN officials to open an
investigation into the March 19 incident. However some Western nations
are blocking the investigation, demanding that the commission should
investigate a different case of supposed chemical attack near the city
of Homs in December for which the militants blame government forces.
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