Zakharova Warns of Chemical Provocations by Terrorists in Syria for Grounding US Strikes

MOSCOW- Terrorists groups in Syria are preparing provocations with the use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta to ground the US airstrikes on the positions of the Syrian Arab army, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, according to Itar Tass.

“According to the available information, Syrian terrorist groups are planning staged provocations with the use of chemical weapons to ground the US airstrikes on the positions of Syrian army  forces,” she said.

 “The actions will most probably be held in a settlement inaccessible to Syria’s government, one of which is the [opposition] enclave in Eastern Ghouta where they previously delivered warfare poisonous agents,” the diplomat specified. “In particular, the militants of the Jaysh al-Islam and Faylaq ar-Rahman terrorist groups based in Eastern Ghouta are known to have a few missiles with warfare chemical agents 150 kg each.”

Zakharova added that “such provocations may happen in the country’s south, in the operation areas of the armed groups beholden to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, as well as in the east of Syria.”

According to the spokeswoman, the so-called Islamic State (IS, a terror organization outlawed in Russia) “is deploying workshops and ammunition production facilities, including for ammunition with warfare chemical agents, from the city of Raqqa to the controlled districts of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.”

“Regarding the numerous statements made by the US-led coalition that it had fully blocked the city of Raqqa, it comes to mind that the transportation of such overall equipment from the very side of the coalition shows, at least, the unwillingness to see some facts,” Zakharova noted. “And, at the outside, I think that we can more likely speak of collusion with militants. We do not rule out that there may be terrorists among these militants.”

Russian diplomat calls OPCW report on Khan Shaykhun incident ‘disappointing’

Meantime, Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov said a report of the fact-finding mission for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the alleged use of a chemical weapon in Syria’s Khan Shaykhun on April 4 arouses disappointment and has almost no new facts,

“We would like to stress that the OPCW report arouses disappointment. We hoped to have more serious and weighty results really bringing us closer to finding those guilty,” Ulyanov, who is the Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department, told a briefing on the Syrian chemical dossier in Moscow.

The mission came to a conclusion two months ago in its preliminary report claiming that sarin, a chemical weapon, was used in Khan Shaykhun, he said. “The final version of this document only confirmed this conclusion and added little essential things to the preliminary assessments,” headed.

According to the diplomat, there is such an impression that the past two months were wasted. “It is becoming more difficult to study the circumstances of the incident,” Ulyanov said. “We have to state that apparently the fact-finding mission is just incapable of ensuring a more efficient work.”

The diplomat called for carrying out a more thorough investigation in the framework of the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism, saying that these experts must visit Khan Shaykhun and the Shayrat airbase. “Now when the use of sarin may be considered as an established fact, and we do not challenge it, there is the need to focus on how this toxic agent had been used and how it had been delivered to the scene,” he said. “Only in this case we can hope to establish the truth and those guilty of the crime.”

H.M