Russia warned on Tuesday of a growing threat of Islamic State and other groups waging chemical warfare in the Middle East and called for global negotiations on a new pact to combat what he called “a grave reality of our time”.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the appeal in a speech to the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
“Nowadays this threat is getting extremely urgent in the light of newly revealed facts of repeated use of not only industrial toxic chemicals but also of full-fledged chemical warfare agents by ISIL and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq,” he said. “There is a growing danger of similar crimes being committed on the territory of Libya and Yemen as well.”
