Moderate Syrian opposition should be supplied with surface-to-air missiles to defend against air strikes, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said.
In recent months, Syrian government forces have driven back opposition groups, supported by intensive air strikes from the Syrian air force and allies Russia.
Al-Jubeir said providing opposition groups with rockets would "allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralize the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there."
According to a report published by the German weekly Der Spiegel, Saudi foreign minister also repeated his calls for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down in order to enable a political solution to the five-year-long war.
"The other option is that the war goes on and Assad is being defeated," al-Jubeir said.
Meanwhile, Al-Jubeir rejected any similarities between the Islamist extremist group and Saudi-Arabia's national, conservative interpretation of Islam, the Wahhabism.
"IS (Daesh) is about as Islamic as the Ku-Klux-Klan is Christian," al-Jubeir said.
He also added that Riyadh was still ready to support the U.S.-led coalition against the militant group Daesh with special forces on the ground.
At least 250,000 people have been killed, 11 million made homeless and hundreds of thousands have fled to Europe since the conflict began in 2011.
