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UN chemical weapons inspectors are due to start a second day of investigations in the suburbs of Damascus

UN team came under sniper fire as they tried to visit an area west of the city

US officials said there was "little doubt" that President Bashar al-Assad's government was to blame

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has called on the international community to show "prudence" over the crisis and observe international law.

Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa

US said it was postponing a meeting on Syria with Russian diplomats, citing "ongoing consultations" about alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria

The two sides had been due to meet in The Hague on Wednesday to discuss setting up an international conference on finding a political solution to the crisis

Western powers were rushing to conclusions about who may have used chemical weapons in Syria before UN inspectors had completed their investigation

Both the Syrian government and rebels have blamed each other for last Wednesday's attacks

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said three hospitals it supported in the Damascus area had treated about 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms", of whom 355 had died

UK is making contingency plans for military action in Syri

Earlier in the day, the UN convoy came under fire from unidentified snipers and was forced to turn back before resuming its journey

In the most forceful US reaction yet, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday described the recent attacks in the Damascus area as a "moral obscenity

Syrian government had something to hide

What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of moralit

President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable peopl

Analysts believe the most likely US action would be sea-launched cruise missiles targeting Syrian military installations.

the West had not produced any proof that President Assad's forces had used chemical weapons

some Western countries that military action against the Syrian government could be taken without a UN mandate

Mr Lavrov said the use of force without Security Council backing would be "a crude violation of international law

an international military response to the suspected use of chemical weapons would be possible without the backing of the UN

The UN Security Council is divided, with Russia and China opposing military intervention and the UK and France warning that the UN could be bypassed if there was "great humanitarian need".

if the West does not intervene to support freedom and democracy in Egypt and Syria, the Middle East will face catastrophe

Chinese leader opened the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum on June 5 in Beijing

energy cooperation; infrastructure construction and creation of favorable conditions for trade and investment; and high-tech domains of nuclear energy, the space rocket sector and new energy sources

suggested that the creation of a free trade zone between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) be accelerated

China supports the peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, "enjoying full sovereignty."

, why shouldn’t Russia and China in the current situation — given the proximity of their interests and positions — undertake joint initiatives to unblock the peace process, while initiating steps to "introduce this activity within an institutional framework?

, the unilateral efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not bearing fruit

Russia is interested in using this unprecedented convergence with China in its operations on the Middle East arena, where Moscow has in many ways already been acting in unison with Beijing

, the Middle East Quartet is one of few international platforms where Russia can constructively engage with the United States and the EU

China's growing economic cooperation with Arab countries not a cause for concern in Moscow, but it is also viewed in a very favorable light

will not one day replace the United States as the security guarantor for the transportation routes of these resources

Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests converge in the joint countering of terrorism, extremism and separatism

. Among the militants from radical groups fighting against government troops in Syria, there are people hailing not only from Russia and Central Asia (fewer in numbers to those coming from Arab and Islamic as well as Western countries), but also from the Uighur minority in China.

recently, Beijing came under harsh criticism from Ankara for its actions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region against the Uighur population, which the Turks believe to be their next of kin

. Disappointed by the failure of EU accession, the Turkish leadership has even started talking about the desire to join the SCO as an observer

Ankara expresses its willingness to cooperate with China in the fight against terrorists and condemns the separatism coming from some groups in Xinjiang

There is no doubt that a comprehensive strategic partnership, in which Russia and China would act in concert along the political consensus reached by their two leaders, would in the short term

According to both, this convergence is neither a union nor a tournament of predators, but a very pragmatic integrationist instrument of protection and projection of interests by the two powers, including in the Middle East.

the Middle East was not the focus of the talks between the two leaders

roughly 50 agreements ushering in a period of unprecedented convergence between the two countries

seems to allow the two parties to seek further coordination in their actions

Such consensus includes Syria, despite Beijing’s lesser involvement on this issue, relative to Moscow; Iran, within the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program; the fight against terrorism and extremism; the creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free Middle East; the condemnation of external intervention and the strategy of "regime change" as well as the push for "color revolutions;" the policy to reach a settlement in the Middle East; and relations with the new Egyptian regime and with respect to the Sudanese issues.