Summary Russia accused NATO on Friday of moving towards involvement in the Syrian conflict.
BRUSSELS: Russia accused NATO on Friday of moving towards involvement in the Syrian conflict, three days after the alliance decided to station Patriot missiles to protect Turkey from spillover from the violence.
The charge came from Russia s new ambassador to NATO, and came in spite of NATO assurances that the Patriots, which will be placed near Turkey s border with Syria, are intended purely for defensive purposes.
"This is not a threat to us, but this is an indication that NATO is moving towards engagement and that s it," Alexander Grushko told reporters.
"We see a threat of further involvement of NATO in the Syrian situation as a result of some provocation or some incidents on the border, if they take place," he said.
Grushko appeared to take a tougher line than Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said after talks with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday that Moscow would not protest against the deployment of the Patriot missiles.
Lavrov had previously warned that the deployment could increase the risk of new weaponry being used in the conflict, but is now involved in talks on ending the crisis with the United states and international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.
Grushko said that the Syrian government, locked in a 20-month-old conflict that has killed 40,000 people, had assured Russia it had no plans to use chemical weapons.
"We are closely watching the situation and if we see that chemical weapons are being transferred somewhere, we (will) make the necessary requests about this situation," he said.
"Our interlocutors that represent the government of Syria make it very clear they do not have any plans on utilizing chemical weapons and that chemical weapons are under stable control," said Grushko, a former deputy foreign minister.
