![Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks to the media after a closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Syria December 16, 2013. [AFP]](/sites/default/files/styles/d08_standard/public/im/misc/000_Was8154045.jpg?itok=YxlDJuE4 "Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks to the media after a closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Syria December 16, 2013. [AFP]")
Russia announced Mondy that it is navy was ready to provide security for ships carrying Syria's chemical weapons stockpile out of the country and remove deadly toxins to the port Latakia over land.
" Russia ... said it will provide security for Latakia and Syria's territorial waters during the operation to destroy the chemical weapons," state-run Itar-Tass quoted Vasily Titushkin, a deputy to Russia's representative at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as saying.
Syria's deadly toxins are to be transported out of the Latakia port by Denmark and Norway aboard two cargo vessels. They will then be destroyed on board a specially adapted U.S. ship as they are too dangerous to import into any country.
Russia is Syria’s most powerful ally, and it has used its veto power in the council in the past to block actions against the regime of President Bashar Assad. Russia initiated the agreement under which Syria agreed to destroy its chemical arms to avert possible U.S. military strikes.
