Russia rejects US call to not block investigation into chemical attack in Syria
Russia has rejected a call by the United States to not block an international investigation by the UN into the use of chemical weapons in Syria in the UN, reports Radio Liberty.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, department head Sergei Lavrov “noted the inadmissibility of politicizing" the so-called joint investigation mechanism of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, whose current mandate expires on November 17, during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
On November 2, the day before, a number of Russian officials criticized the latest study, which proved in particular that Syrian government forces were guilty of a chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun on April 4 that resulted in the deaths of about 100 civilians.
In particular, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Ulyanov claimed that the findings of the investigation were unsubstantiated. According to Ulyanov, a bomb from a Syrian combat aircraft could not have caused the explosion. He called it "strange" that the investigation relied on independent experts rather than Russian experts, given that Syrian aircraft are manufactured in Russia.
Ulyanov also claimed that the Syrian aircraft could not have dropped the bomb at Khan Shaykhun, because it flew too far from the city.
Russia, together with Damascus, earlier claimed conversely that the Syrian plane had actually dropped the bomb on Khan Shaykhun, which was then under opposition control; however, they claimed that that air strike had bombed the chemical weapons factory or warehouse of the opposition itself, which led to the poisoning.
In late October, the United Nations called Assad responsible for the chemical attack in Syrian Idlib.