Preparations are underway to extensively discuss the Syrian crisis during a conclave held by United Nations Security Council 15-member states with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Stockholm during the upcoming weekend, revealed diplomatic sources to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Russia has meanwhile rejected to get involved in discussions concerning a new resolution on Syria, which was spearheaded by France and backed by the US and the UK.
It instead called for an independent investigation into the Douma chemical weapons attack that prompted cruise missile strikes by the Western allies on Friday.
In Syria, the official news agency SANA reported that inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) entered Douma.
Security sources in the Syrian city told the German news agency that members of the Fact-Finding Mission entered the town on Tuesday afternoon under the protection of the Russian military police.
OPCW inspectors first headed to the local hospital where the victims of the April 7 chemical attack were treated.
The sources added that the mission would stay in Douma for three days to meet and interrogate hospital staff and to meet the victims of the attack.
The French Foreign Ministry said it is “very likely” that evidence has disappeared from the location of the poison gas attack, adding it was essential that international inspectors be given full access to the site where at least 40 people were killed.
Meanwhile, the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, including the US, France, Britain and Germany, issued a joint statement early Tuesday in which they condemned the chemical attack.
