If the United States tries to deploy missile defense systems in Syria, Damascus should immediately raise this issue in the UN Security Council, Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Russian upper house's International Committee, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th August, 2018) If the United States tries to deploy missile defense systems in Syria, Damascus should immediately raise this issue in the UN Security Council, Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Russian upper house's International Committee, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, media reported, citing former Commander of Syria's Deir ez-Zor Military Assembly Fayez Esmer, that the Pentagon was getting ready to set a missile defense shield in Syria's northeastern Al Hasakah and Rmelan.
"[In case this information is confirmed,] the Syrians should raise the issue in the UN Security Council ... It is absolutely illegal. The United States has no UN mandate, it has no right to be in Syria, let alone to create any military facilities there," Dzhabarov said.
Frants Klintsevich, a member of the Defense Committee of the upper house of Russian parliament, considers that if these media reports are confirmed and the United States places its missile defense systems in northern Syria, these actions can definitely be viewed as a provocation along with plans for the staging a chemical attack in Syria.
"If the United States really makes attempts to deploy its missile defense systems in Syria, this should be definitely qualified as a provocation. In fact, this provocation goes in line with the staging of an attack with the 'use of chemical weapons,' prepared by militants, which should serve as a pretext for attacking Syrian government facilities by the United States and its allies," Klintsevich said as quoted by his press service.
The lawmaker added that there is no military need to deploy US missile defense systems in Syria.
The US-led coalition of more than 70 countries is conducting military operations against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The coalition's operations in Iraq are conducted in cooperation with the Iraqi government, but those in Syria are not authorized by the government of President Bashar Assad or the UN Security Council.
On Tuesday, Maj. Gen. Alexei Tsygankov, head of the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation, said that representatives of the White Helmets group have delivered a large shipment of toxic substances to a warehouse used by Ahrar al-Sham militants in Idlib province. According to Tsygankov, a part of this shipment in unmarked plastic barrels was later transported to another militant base in the southern part of Idlib province in order to stage a false-flag chemical attack and subsequently accuse the government forces of the use of toxic agents against civilians.
