Russian news agencies quoted
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Wednesday that Russia will show the
UN Security Council evidence it has received from Syria's government pointing
to the use of chemical weapons by rebels in the Damascus suburbs.
Lavrov, who has said a report by
UN investigators did not dispel Russia's suspicions that rebels were behind an
Aug. 21 poison gas attack, spoke after one of his deputies was given
unspecified evidence by the government while visiting Syria.
"We will present all this in
the U.N. Security Council, of course," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying.
A top Russian diplomat
visiting Damascus said Syria had turned over
materials to Russia showing that a chemical weapons attack last month was
carried out by rebels.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Deputy Foreign
Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that Syria told Russian officials the
material "bears witness to the rebels participating in the chemical
attack" but that Russia has not yet drawn any conclusions.
Ryabkov was meeting Wednesday with Syrian
President Bashar Assad, Russian news agencies reported.
In this regard, the Syrian state-run news
agency SANA quoted President Bashar al-Assad as expressing his appreciation to
Russia in regards to its supportive positions in the face of the "vicious
attack" against his country.
SANA added that President Assad said during his
meeting with Ryabkov that the Russian positions give hope to reaching a new
global balance.
Russia has been Syria's main ally since the
start of the conflict in March 2011, blocking proposed UN resolutions that
would impose sanctions on Assad's regime and opposing an attempt to authorize
the use of force if Syria does not abide by the agreement to get rid of its
chemical weapons.
Five million Syrians have been displaced inside
the country and more than 2 million have sought refuge in the neighboring countries
of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, according to the UN.
UN chemical inspectors
The United Nations on Wednesday
defended a report by U.N. chemical weapons experts that Russia has criticized
as "one-sided," saying its conclusion that rockets loaded with sarin
gas were used in an Aug. 21 attack should not be questioned.
"The findings in that report
are indisputable," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.
"They speak for themselves and this was a thoroughly objective report on
that specific incident."
Earlier, the chief UN
chemical weapons inspector said his team will return to Syria "within
weeks" to complete the investigation it had started before the Aug 21 gas
attack of other alleged chemical weapons attacks in the country.
Ake Sellstrom told The Associated Press the
team will evaluate "allegations of chemical weapons use from both sides,
but perhaps mainly from the Syrian government's side."
He said he doesn't currently think there is a
need for more investigations of the Aug. 21 attacks, but said "if we
receive any additional information it will be included next time we
report."
He declined to specify where the inspectors
would go or which specific events they would look more closely at. The report
issued on Monday confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used in the Aug. 21 attack
but did not assign blame.
Britain, France and the United States said it
confirmed Syria's government, not rebels as Russia has suggested, was behind
it.
Reactions:
An Israeli top commander on the frontier with Syria said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could cling to power for years despite having lost overall control of his country.
Major-General Yair Golan's remarks, published on Wednesday in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, reflected debate in Israel over Assad's fate, 2-1/2 years into Syria's civil war, after a US-Russian agreement to force him to give up his chemical weapons.
This as Jordan's King Abdullah called on China to exercise its influence to help resolve the conflict in Syria.
Abdullah made his appeal in his opening remarks at a meeting Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state visit to China.
Abdullah praised relations between the two countries and said they shared a commitment to promoting progress on global issues of concern.
Abdullah then referred to the Syria conflict specifically, saying China was in a position to use its influence as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a "friend of Jordan and the Middle East."
On the field:
A rebel group affiliated with al Qaeda overran a Syrian town near the border with Turkey on Wednesday after fighting broke out with units of the Arab- and Western-backed Free Syrian Army, opposition activists said.
Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stormed the town of
Aazaz, 5 kms (2 miles) from the Syrian-Turkish border and killed at least five Free Syrian Army members, they said, adding 100 people were arrested.
The fighting is the most severe since tensions mounted earlier this year between the two rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
Earlier, an Israeli-Arab has been killed fighting for Syria's rebels, his father said , the first such case for the Jewish state which has largely kept out of the 2-1/2-year-old civil war next door.
Mueid Agbaria, of the Galilee village of Mushirfa, travelled to Syria via Turkey last month without telling his family, his father Zaki said, adding that the married 28-year-old was accompanied by two other men from a nearby Israeli Arab town.
On Tuesday, the Agbaria family received a photograph of Mueid's body, apparently taken on a battlefield in Syria. The insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has drawn a trickle of volunteers from Israel's 20 percent Arab minority.
Worried its citizens could gain military know-how and radical Islamist leanings, Israel has sought to deter the practice by trying two Arabs when they returned home. One was sentenced in July to 30 months in prison.
REUTERS/AP/LBCI
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