The White House on Friday urged Syria to expedite moving its chemical weapons to a port where they can be removed.
"Syria must immediately take the necessary actions to comply with its obligations," White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a briefing.
"We all know that the Syrian regime has the capability to move these weapons," Carney said at a briefing," he said. "We're going to continue to work with our partners on this to keep up the pressure on the Assad regime."
This comes as Russia rejected U.S. charges that Syria is dragging its feet on giving up chemical weapons and said that a June 30 deadline to destroy President Bashar al-Assad's arsenal of toxic agents remains viable despite delays.
The Syrian government is acting "in good faith" to eliminate its chemical weapons under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States, the Interfax news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry official Mikhail Ulyanov as saying.
The signal of support for Assad came after the United states blamed his government for delays in shipping toxic substances out of Syria for destruction under the September deal that helped Assad avoid potential U.S. air strikes.
The international operation to dispose of the stockpile is six to eight weeks behind schedule and next week's deadline for sending all toxic agents out on Syria will be missed, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters.
Ulyanov, head of the Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, blamed the delays on security problems on the road to the port of Latakia and insufficient technical support from the outside world, Interfax reported.
"We see that the Syrians are approaching the fulfillment of their obligations seriously and in good faith," Ulyanov was quoted as saying. "We see no need to urge them on or force them into an overly strict framework."
"Our American partners, in their usual manner, are betting on pressure even in those cases where there is absolutely no need for it," he said.
On the field:
Activists said the latest Syrian government shelling has killed at least 16 people in a rebel-held area of the northern city of Aleppo.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that the shells struck at the city's Qadi Askar area.
Abdurrahman said the shelling took place on Thursday and that it took hours to verify the number of the victims.
The Aleppo Media Center, another activist group, also provided a similar report.Syrian forces have been shelling rebel-held parts of Aleppo for weeks, on many occasions unleashing barrels packed with explosives from military helicopters.
The shelling has taken place as Syrian ground forces inch closer to eastern parts of Aleppo, which rebels seized in July 2012.
Also on Friday, activists said fighting on the ground in Syria has killed nearly 1,900 rebels and civilians during the week of U.N.-hosted peace talks in Switzerland.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it has counted 1,870 dead from the day the talks started on Jan. 22 until Thursday evening.
The Observatory said those killed include at least 430 civilians who died from bombs, snipers and missiles. The rest were rebels, al-Qaeda militants and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The
conference in Geneva didn't produce any tangible results but is expected to kick off prolonged negotiations to try to resolve the conflict.
AP/REUTERS