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Moscow hoped a "war of civilizations" in Syria could be avoided, despite the fact Western powers had been moving along that path, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
"I was greatly alarmed by the statements made from Paris and London that NATO may intervene to destroy chemical weapons in Syria without the consent of the UN Security Council. It's a very dangerous and slippery path," Lavrov told reporters.
He said the use of force without the Security Council's sanction would be a major violation of international law.
"Even if we leave the legal, moral and ethical aspects aside, specific consequences of external interference not authorized by the international community would only sharply exacerbate the situation in the country," Lavrov said.
Meanwhile, Russia would not start military confrontation with anyone over Syria, he added.
"We expect our Western partners to draft their policy not reactively but strategically," he said.
He described the deployment of Western naval vessels off Syrian shores as "a grave blunder" and compared the Western intimidation of Syria with the way the West started its intervention in Iraq ten years ago.
Lavrov said foreign intervention would not lead to peace but to a new round of the civil war in Syria and he accused "certain forces" of deliberately undermining peaceful efforts.
"The moment we see a glimmer of hope appear, someone who wishes to prevent the situation from returning to the right track pops up," he said.
However, he said his U.S. counterpart John Kerry promised during a recent phone conversation to study the arguments against military intervention in Syria.
