Turkey sceptical about US-Russia deal on Syria

Ankara: The US-Russia agreement designed to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria, though a positive step, could be exploited by the Syrian government, according to the Turkish foreign ministry. The deal should not turn into a process that would buy time for Syria, Xinhua quoted a foreign ministry official as saying citing local media.

The given schedule to strip Syria of its chemical weapons was long enough for it to exploit the deal, it added. Meanwhile, Turkey`s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reiterated his concerns over Syria during a phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry late Saturday, semi-official Anatolian news agency quoted diplomatic sources as saying. He said the agreement did not address the urgent need to solve the conflict in Syria. The US and Russia had Saturday reached an agreement on the framework of destroying Syria`s chemical weapons by mid-2014 and imposing UN penalties if Damascus failed to comply. IANS