Jul 27, 7:50 AM EDT
BEIRUT (AP)
-- Talks between the Syrian government and a U.N. delegation tasked with
investigating chemical weapons allegations in the nation's civil war
have "resulted in an agreement on ways of moving forward," Syrian state
media said Saturday.
President Bashar Assad's
government invited a U.N. team to visit Damascus earlier this month
after requesting that the international organization investigate an
alleged chemical attack in Khan al-Assal, a village in the north. The
Syrian regime and the rebels fighting to topple it accuse each other of
using chemical agents in the March 19 incident.
Assad's
government refused to have a possible inquiry include other alleged
chemical attack sites in the central city of Homs, Damascus and
elsewhere.
Earlier this week Swedish chemical
weapons expert Ake Sellstrom and U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane met
with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and his deputy, Faisal Mekdad, in
the Syrian capital.
A joint statement by the
foreign ministry and the U.N. that appeared on Syria's official SANA
news agency's website on Saturday said the meetings were "comprehensive
and fruitful and resulted in an agreement on ways of moving forward."
It did not elaborate. The U.N. team couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Khan
al-Assal, on the southwestern edge of the embattled city of Aleppo, was
under government control in March. It was captured by the rebels on
Monday after weeks of heavy fighting between government troops and
opposition forces who took large swathes of territory in the north -
including parts of Aleppo - in an offensive last summer.
Saturday's
announcement on an agreement on a possible U.N. probe of the March
attack that killed 31 people in Khan al-Assal coincided with government
allegations that the rebels committed "a massacre" in the village,
killing "a number of civilians and military personnel," according to a
SANA report. It did not give a death toll. The report said "terrorists"
were behind the recent killings in Khan al-Assal, a term the government
uses for rebels.
The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights says at least 150 soldiers were killed on
Monday and Tuesday, some after they had surrendered, during and after
the rebel storming of Khan al-Assal.
The
group, which relies on a network of activists on the ground inside Syria
said at least 51 of the soldiers were shot dead after they were
captured or had surrendered to rebels, the Observatory said Saturday.
It said around 100 were killed when they tried to hold on to positions
inside and around the village.
The
Observatory's report could not be independently confirmed. Syria's
official media does not release casualty figures for security forces and
government soldiers.
In Aleppo, a rocket
fired by government forces into a rebel-held district killed at least 18
people, including six children and four women, The Observatory said
Saturday. The attack occurred a day earlier during government shelling
of al-Qaida-linked rebel fighters in the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood of
Aleppo. One of the rockets slammed into a residential area about 50
meters (yards) away from positions held by the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant, the Observatory said. At least another 50 people were
wounded.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in the 2-year-old conflict, according to the U.N.'s recent estimate.
----
Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.
No comments:
Post a Comment