Russia's deputy foreign minister said Syria could complete its shipment of chemical weapons out of the country by March.
"Literally yesterday the Syrians announced that they have planned the removal of a large shipment of chemical weapons in February," Gennady Gatilov said in an interview with the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti published Tuesday.
The comments came after the United States criticized Syria on Thursday for its slow pace in moving chemical weapons out of the country for destruction.
All of the most toxic chemicals were supposed to have been out of the country by Dec. 31, but that deadline was missed.
Russia has been Syria's staunch ally throughout the conflict which has now claimed over 100,000 lives, and Gatilov urged other nations not to "dramatize the situation."
Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said the Syrian government will attend the next round of peace talks with the opposition, set to begin on Feb. 10 in Geneva.
"We have no doubt that the government delegation will take part in the second round of international talks in Geneva," Bogdanov told reporters before talks in Moscow between
Russian officials and Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Jarba.
On the field:
The Syrian regime continued on Tuesday its intense aerial campaign against rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo for the third week in a row, conducting a series of airstrikes, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Observatory added that the Syrian regime air force pounded the areas of Dawar al-Salihin, Dawar al-Haouz and al-Zamati neighborhood in Aleppo, killing and injuring civilians.
Activists said Syrian forces have dropped a crude bomb on a mosque in a rebel-held neighborhood of the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least five people, including children.
Activist Hassoun Abu Faisal of the Aleppo Media Center said the mosque in the Masaken Hanano area was also used as a school and that children were inside when it was hit on Tuesday with a barrel bomb a crude device packed with fuel and scraps of metal.
The Local Coordinating Committees, another activist group, said five people were killed.
It wasn't immediately clear how many were children.
REUTERS/AP