Syria has reached an agreement with the United Nations to allow a team of international experts to visit the site of alleged chemical weapons attacks last week outside Damascus, state media and the UN said.
A statement on Syrian state television said Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and UN disarmament chief Angela Kane struck the deal during talks in Damascus, and the two sides are working to finalise the date and time of the visit.
The world body said that a team of UN experts already in Syria has been instructed to focus on investigating the purported attack on Wednesday.
Anti-Government activists and Doctors Without Borders said that more than 300 people were killed in the alleged toxic gas attack on the eastern suburbs of the capital.
Images purporting to show the aftermath of the attack are filled with people gasping for breath and dead children unmarked by any wounds.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the Syrian Government “affirmed that it will provide the necessary cooperation, including the observance of the cessation of hostilities at the locations related to the incident”.
He added that UN chief Ban Ki-moon “would like to reiterate that all relevant parties equally share the responsibility of cooperating in urgently generating a safe environment for the mission to do its job efficiently and providing all necessary information”.
The deal appears to meet the demands of world powers, including the US, Britain, France and Russia.