‘Many Gaps’ in OPCW Report on Idlib Incident as Mission Failed to Visit Site

MOSCOW- The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) mission into alleged April’s chemical incident in Syrian Idlib has failed to establish what happened in the province as it never visited the site of the incident or the airbase from which the alleged attack was carried out, Permanent Russian Representative to OPCW Alexander Shulgin said.

 The OPCW report was presented on Friday and claimed that the mission had established the use of sarin but did not determine who was responsible, According to Sputnik.

“The fact-finding mission has not visited either Khan Sheikhoun, the alleged place of usage of chemical weapons or Ash Sha’irat airbase … therefore there are many omissions or gaps in the text of the report itself… The team was unable to establish what actually had happened in Khan Sheikhoun,” Shulgin told the RT broadcaster in an interview following an extraordinary session of the executive council of the OPCW where the report was discussed.

On April 4, the so-called National Coalition and the armed groups supported by the United States, blamed Damascus for the allged Khan Sheikhoun incident. The Syrian army strongly rejected the accusations and laid the blame on terrorist groups. The Syrian authorities said that they had never used chemical weapons against civilians or terrorists, and that the nation’s entire chemical arsenal had been destroyed under the control of the OPCW.

Reacting to the incident, Washington, which had not presented any proof of chemical weapon use by Damascus, launched 59 cruise missiles at the Syrian governmental military airfield in Ash Sha’irat on April 7.

H.M