Russian official meets Syrian President in Damascus

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met Wednesday, Sept 18, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, RIA Novosti reported citing the Russian embassy’s press attaché in Syria.

No details of the meeting were revealed.

However, the embassy said that on Tuesday, Ryabkov spent several hours in talks with the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.

The negotiations focused on the Russian-U.S. plan to place Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles under international control.

UN inspectors said Monday that rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin had been fired from an area where Syria's military has bases, but said the evidence could have been manipulated in the rebel-controlled stricken neighborhoods.

The U.S., Britain and France jumped on evidence in the report — especially the type of rockets, the composition of the sarin agent, and trajectory of the missiles — to declare that President Bashar Assad's government was responsible.

Russia called the investigators' findings "deeply disturbing," but said it was too early to draw conclusions.

The Syrian government's claims that opposition forces were responsible for the attack "cannot be simply shrugged off," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said.