Russia does not see convincing evidence in the UN report that the Syrian government was to blame for last month's chemical weapons attack outside Damascus, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says.
Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow's doubt that the Syrian government was behind a deadly chemical weapons attack on August 21, saying "we have the most serious basis to believe that this was a provocation".
"The report needs to be studied, not in isolation but with all evidence that is currently in the media and the internet," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.
The foreign minister reiterated that the report only showed that chemical weapons were used during the August 21 attack. "The UN inspectors had no mandate to assign guilt," he said.
Lavrov added that the UN inspectors should return to Syria to investigate further incidents of alleged chemical weapons use.
Lavrov said after talks with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius that while Moscow and Paris had the same aim of ending the bloodshed "we have certain differences on the ways to reaching this (aim)". Fabius said there was a "difference in the approach on the methods".
