Russian deputy FM arrives in Syria for talks on chemical weapons

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has arrived in Syria for talks to discuss a plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons. On Tuesday he will meet with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad. After the talks they will give a joint news conference in Damascus. It is not ruled out that Ryabkov will meet with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem later in the day. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sealed on Saturday a deal on a framework to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 under control of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Earlier in the day the Russian president’s special envoy to Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Syrian ambassador to Russia Riyadh Haddad met in Moscow to discuss practical implementation of the agreement. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, they also focused on the soonest possible political settlement of Syria’s crisis on the basis of the Geneva communiqu· of June 30, 2012, through an international peace conference.