Ukraine offers help in destruction of Syrian chemical weapons

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Thursday that Moscow is ready to help eliminate Syrian chemical weapons provided the international community agrees. If Russia is assigned a role in transporting or eliminating such weapons, "naturally, Russia will participate," Shoigu said, adding that Russia possessed facilities for destroying such weapons. Syrian President Bashar Assad pledged on Wednesday to destroy his chemical arsenal, saying in an interview with American broadcaster Fox News that the process would take about a year. UN inspectors said Monday that they had found "clear and convincing evidence" that chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, were used in an August 21 attack that killed hundreds of people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. The inspectors had no mandate to determine who had launched the attack, which the United States and some of its Western allies have attributed to the Assad regime, but which Moscow and Syria have called a provocation by anti-Assad rebels, who have been locked in conflict with government forces since March 2011.