The team of chemical weapons experts, dressed in blue UN body armor, were accompanied by security forces and an ambulance.
They said they were headed to the rebel-held outskirts of Damascus, known as Eastern Ghouta, where activists say rockets loaded with poison gas killed hundreds of people.
This happened as British Foreign Secretary William Hague said it would be possible to respond to chemical weapons use in Syria without the unanimous backing of the United Nations Security Council.
"Is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the U.N. Security Council? I would argue yes it is otherwise it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes, and I don't think that's an acceptable situation," Hague said on BBC radio.
The West accuses the Syrian government of mounting the poison gas attack.
But in an interview with a Russian newspaper Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dismissed allegations his forces used chemical weapons and warned Washington that any US military intervention would fail.
"Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day," he told the Izvestia daily when asked what would happen if Washington decided to strike or invade Syria.
Assad said Syrian government forces had been close to where rebel forces say chemical weapons were used last week during the country's more than two-year-old civil war.
"Would any state use chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic," Assad told Izvestia, a pro-Kremlin newspaper.
Russia has been Assad's most important international ally throughout the civil war, supplying his troops with arms and resisting pressure at the United Nations for tighter sanctions on Damascus.
Asked about the arms deliveries, Assad said: "I want to say that all contracts that have been concluded with Russia are being fulfilled."
He gave no details and did not say whether Damascus had taken delivery of advanced S-300 sir defense systems from Russia, which could vastly enhance its defense capabilities.
source: interaksyon.com
