‘Syria showed co-op by joining OPCW’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Syria has shown its cooperation by joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

On Friday, Lavrov made the remarks at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council at UN headquarters in New York City, where members of the council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria and calling for their destruction.

Lavrov called on the OPCW to carry out its work in a “professional and impartial way,” adding that Syria had shown “real cooperation” by giving the list of its chemical weapons arsenal to the OPCW.

The Russian foreign minister stated that the Security Council must œcarefully” consider any violations of the resolution.

“The responsibility for the implementation of this resolution does not only lie on the government of Syria,” he said.

On August 21, hundreds of people were killed and scores of others were injured in a chemical attack on the suburbs of Damascus.

The militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition accused the army of being behind the deadly attack.

Damascus, however, has strongly denied the accusation, saying it was a false-flag operation carried out by Takfiri groups in a bid to draw in foreign military intervention.

Following the chemical attack, US stepped up its war rhetoric against the Syrian government and called for punitive military action against Damascus.

The Syrian government averted possible US aggression by accepting a Russian plan to put its chemical arsenal under international control and then have them destroyed.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

In a recent statement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the number of Syrian refugees, who have fled the country™s conflict, reached two million.

NT/AB/MHB