DHAKA: China’s foreign minister on Sunday welcomed the deal between the United States and Russia to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, which headed off the prospect of US strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

‘The Chinese side welcomes the general agreement between the US and Russia.
This agreement will enable tensions in Syria to be eased,’ Wang Yi said at a meeting with his visiting French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

Fabius, who arrived in Beijing Sunday morning and was due to head back to Paris later, called the pact ‘a significant step forward’ and said ‘important decisions need to be taken on Syria’.

‘We must move forward on the basis of this general agreement,’ he said, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1733 HRS, SEPT 15, 2013
RoR/SRS