28.05.2017, Russia.
On May 25, the Foreign Ministry of Russia in its commentary on the session of the UN Security Council held on May 23, which is published on the Ministry’s website, commented the results of another discussion around the alleged chemical attack in Idlib (Syria).
“A discouraging situation is emerging. Almost two months after the chemical incident, nobody seems to really bother to visit Khan Shaykhun in order to find out all the circumstances of such a high-profile case,” the Foreign Ministry says in its commentary. The authors emphasize that the Western side also refuses to visit the Shayrat airbase “where, according to their statements, the sarin gas used in Khan Shaykhun was supposedly stored,” the statement says.
According to the Foreign Ministry officials, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is not eager to clarify the Idlib incident, “Unfortunately, the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) is not active in pursuing this issue; it has repeatedly postponed its visit to Khan Shaykhun referring to an unfavorable security situation”, the Foreign Ministry officials wonder.
However, the ambassadors of the US, the UK, and France attempted to make the discussion in the UN Security Council take “an expressly anti-al-Assad and anti-Russian sound”.
On April 4, the Western media alleged that either Russian or Syrian government air force used chemical weapons in the city of Khan Shaykhun in the Syrian province of Idlib. 58 people, including 11 children, were reported killed.
Russia holds to a stance that the incident must be investigated thoroughly and “strictly within the framework of the UN Security Council- and OPCW-approved Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) and FFM mandates, using all the investigatory actions, methods, and rules stipulated by the appropriate resolutions of the Security Council and the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CCW)”, with mandatory visits to Khan Shaykhun and the Shayrat airbase.
Russia believes that it is an absolutely intolerable practice when “investigations are carried out remotely and are based on evidence provided by dubious witnesses or even ‘false victims’”, with a wide use of “resources of long-discredited NGOs having strong links with militants and terrorist groups.” “This is not just a simulation of work; we face an intentional, deliberate falsification having clearly expressed political goals,” the Foreign Ministry commentary says.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
