UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday warned against attempts to "usurp the right to accuse and pass verdicts" on the issue of the Syrian chemical weapons.
Lavrov made the statement as he was taking the floor at the annual General Debate of the Un General Assembly, which entered its fourth day here Friday.
"The use of chemical weapons is inadmissible," he said. "This does not mean, however, that one can usurp the right to accuse and pass verdicts."
"All the incidents associated with the use of chemical weapons by whoever that might be in Syria must be investigated in a professional and unbiased manner and then examined by the UN Security Council exclusively on the basis of facts, rather than allegations and assumptions," Lavrov said.
Syria has agreed to comply with a U.S.-Russian deal to place its chemical weapons under international control after a UN fact- finding group confirmed chemical weapons had been used in the Aug. 21 attack that killed more than 1,400 people, without laying the blame at any party.
"Recently, a common argument has been increasingly used to prove that the threat or use of force directly prohibited by the UN Charter is nearly the most effective method to address international problems, including settlement of national domestic conflicts," he said.
"There are attempts to extrapolate such an approach also to the situation in Syria," the foreign minister said. "This happens despite the fact that all the experience of such interventions with the use of force in the recent years has proven that they are ineffective, meaningless and destructive."
"This is an extremely dangerous path leading to the erosion of the foundations of today's world order and subversion of the WMD ( weapons of mass destruction) non-proliferation regimes," he said.
"It is alarming to hear the statements on the right to use military force to ensure one's own interests in the Middle East region under the pretext of the 'remaining demand for leadership' in the international affairs," he said. "All the recent history testifies that no State -- no matter how big or powerful -- can cope alone with the challenges of that scope faced by mankind today."
Holding the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accuuntable for the chemical attacks outside Damascus, U.S. President Barack Obama has threatened to launch a punitive limited air strike against the Arab country, which was publicly opposed among Americans.
Moscow objects military intervention against Syria, accusing the Syrian rebels of launching the alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapon attack in the suburbs of Damascus and cooked the evidence in advance.
"There is no doubt that leadership is required," he said. " However, today it can be only the collective leadership based on the agreed upon actions of the leading member of the international community with international Law."
"The desire to portray in a simplified way the developments in the Arab worlds as the struggle of democracies against tyrannies or the good against the evil has long obscured the problems associated with the rising wave of extremism which spills over to other regions today as well," he said. "The terrorist attacks in Kenya have demonstrated all the gravity of this threat."
"It is common knowledge that the jihadist groups that comprise quite a few radicals coming from all parts of the world are the most combat-capable units of the opposition," Lavrov said. "The goals they pursue have nothing to do with democracy and are based on intolerance and aimed at destruction of secular states and establishment of caliphates."
"It is hard to call as far-sighted the policy which on substance either mounts military persistence as in Mali or provides to the same groups support as in Syria," he said.
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