Russia on Friday warned the United States on Friday against targeting Syria’s chemical arsenal after The New York Times reported that U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered the Pentagon to expand the list of potential targets in Syria including military units that employ chemical weapons.
“With particular concern we perceive the fact that military infrastructure facilities securing the integrity and safety of Syria’s chemical arsenal are among the possible targets for military strikes,” Agence France-Presse reported the Russian foreign ministry as saying in a statement.
“In this respect we warn U.S. authorities and their allies against striking any chemical facilities and adjacent territories,” the statement said.
“Such actions would represent a dangerous new turn in the tragic development of the Syria crisis,” the ministry said, warning that the strikes could prompt the release of highly toxic substances.
“Besides, one cannot rule out that militants and terrorists would gain access to chemical weapons or chemical warfare agents as a result of such a reckless move,” the ministry said, expressing concern over the possible spread of chemical weapons further across Syria and beyond its borders.
“The U.S. bombing of Iraq’s Al Muthanna chemical storage facility led to a serious contamination of adjacent territory in 1991,” the statement said.
“For peaceful residents of Syria and other countries of the region the consequences can be even more severe.”
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