MOSCOW -- Mideast countries should follow Syria's example and give up chemical weapons stockpiles, a senior Russian diplomat said on Tuesday.
"There are other countries in the region, except Syria, which have not yet officially joined the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Over the past months, Syria has removed and destroyed more than 92 percent of its chemical weapons material along with the facilities that produced it, with the help of a number of foreign countries.
Ryabkov added that Russia will continue to urge other Mideast countries to join the convention and do the same.
Last year, Syria renounced its chemical weapons material and joined the 1992 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons under an agreement brokered by Russia and the United States.
The United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons set up a joint mission last October to oversee the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons under the relevant Security Council resolution.
The removal of the most critical material for destruction began in January.
