Skip to main content

Russia accuses Syrian rebels of chemical attack killing 16



RUSSIA accused Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons in an attack on Tuesday and said it was an extremely alarming and dangerous development.

"According to information coming from Damascus, a case of the use of chemical weapons by the armed opposition was recorded early in the morning of March 19 in Aleppo province," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It did not specify the exact source of information on the deadly attack, which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and the rebels blamed on one another. It said the explosion of a piece of ammunition "containing a poisonous substance" killed 16 people and wounded about 100 others.

If confirmed, the attack would be the first use of chemical weapons in the two-year-old conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people and set Russia against the West.

"We are very seriously concerned by the fact that weapons of mass destruction are falling into the hands of the rebels, which further worsens the situation in Syria and elevates the confrontation in the country to a new level," the ministry said.

Russia has warned Assad's government not to use chemical weapons and said in December that Damascus had taken steps to ensure that chemical agents were secure by concentrating them at a smaller number of sites.

Moscow has protected Assad from threats of sanctions to press him to end violence, vetoing three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions. It says his exit from power must not be a precondition for a political settlement.

The White House said that it was looking carefully at any allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria.

Britain's U.N. envoy said that reports of a chemical weapon attack in Syria had not yet been "fully verified" as the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons near the northern city of Aleppo.

"We have seen those reports, they haven't yet been fully verified," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters on his way into a UN. Security Council meeting on Afghanistan.

"But clearly if chemical weapons were used then that would be abhorrent and it would require a serious response from the international community," he said.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan rejected the accusation from Syria that Turkey bore responsibility for a possible chemical attack in the northern province of Aleppo.

"Turkey has never been in a situation in which it used chemical weapons. There are no chemical weapons in our inventory," Erdogan told reporters.

"The Syrian regime doesn't know what it's saying about Turkey."

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi said earlier that Turkey and Qatar, which have supported rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, bore "legal, moral and political responsibility" for the attack, state television reported.

The minister said rebels had fired a rocket carrying chemical agents that killed 16 people and wounded 86. State television said later the death toll had risen to 25.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re
Post a Comment
Read more

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has
Post a Comment
Read more

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specif
1 comment
Read more