Russia accuses West of encouraging terrorism in Syria

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia accused Western powers on Wednesday, July 25, of encouraging terrorism over their refusal to condemn the suicide bombing that killed Syria’s defense minister last week, RIA Novosti reported.

“In other words, they are saying: ‘we will continue to support such terrorist acts until the UN Security Council does what we want it to do’,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists. “This is a chilling position.”

Four top Syrian security officials, including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, were killed when a rebel suicide bomber managed to infiltrate the government building where they were meeting in the capital, Damascus, on July 18.

The United States envoy to the UN, Susan Rice, said after the bombing that the attack was further proof of the necessity to adopt a Security Council resolution against the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian-based rights activists say some 16,000 have been killed since the start of an uprising against Assad in March 2011.

Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution on Syria on July 19 over fears that it would lead to foreign military intervention in the Middle East country, a stance that United States envoy to the United Nations Susan Rice called "paranoid if not disingenuous.”

Lavrov also criticized the new unilateral European Union sanctions against Syria introduced on Monday.