MOSCOW. Nov 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Syria may become the next country where the United States may continue its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) search mission, Russian military expert Lieutenant General Yevgeny Yevstafyev told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"In the foreseeable future, we will most likely witness the continuation of the West's favorite policy of double standards, but now it will be applied to the Syria Arab Republic," he said.
Yevstafyev quoted recent U.S. media reports as saying that shortly before the military campaign in Iraq, Russian servicemen and Iraq's special services had allegedly taken several hundred tonnes of explosives out of the Al-Qaqaa military facility. "The reports suggested that these weapons had allegedly been delivered by Russia's special services to Syria," the expert said.
"My impression is that those who have suffered a moral defeat in the issue of WMD in Iraq are planning revenge, taking advantage of their military and political dominance in the region," Yevstafyev said.
In its earlier reports, the Russian Defense Ministry has denied any Russian servicemen's involvement in helping take 380 tonnes of explosives out of Iraq.
"These reports (in the U.S. media - Interfax-AVN) are nothing other than untrue and outrageous allegations," Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Vyacheslav Sedov told Interfax-AVN.
Meanwhile, the U.S. administration said it had no information that Russia had helped the former Iraqi authorities deliver these explosives to other countries.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said during his recent visit to Moscow that he had never come across this information.