The statement came within minutes after Damascus said that gunnies had kidnapped 11 people, including six members of a UN fact-finding mission and their Syrian drivers, in the countryside around Hama.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said its team was travelling to the site of an alleged chlorine gas attack site when the convoy was attacked.
The OPCW, which monitors the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and oversees the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, had sent a team to Damascus this month to investigate claims that chlorine has been used in the central Syrian region of Hama.
The OPCW statement was issued shortly after Syria's Foreign Ministry announced the abduction of the 11 UN staff and Syrian drivers.
The ministry blamed rebels fighting to topple
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
, accusing them of committing "terrorist crimes" against the UN staff and OPCW.
Following the incident, the OPCW director-general, ambassador Ahmet Uzumcu, expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
, repeating his call to all parties for co-operation with the mission.