Syria’s Permanent Delegation to UN: US Claims against Syria and Russia on Chemical Investigation Aims at Protecting Terrorists

NEW YORK- The fabricated allegations made by the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations against Syria and Russia on the pretext of disrupting the international mechanisms to investigate the use of toxic chemicals come in the framework of “covering terrorist groups,” supported by Known countries, the permanent delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic to the UN in New York said.

 The Syrian News Agency SANA reported that in a statement on Thursday, the delegation said the US Ambassador’s statement on 23/01/2018 that accused the Syrian government of using chlorine gas against innocent civilians in Eastern Ghouta is baseless and unsurprising as it constitutes a cover on crimes committed by armed terrorist groups that comes within the framework of the ongoing campaigns led by the US administration against Syria.

 “The policy of directing such accusations against the Syrian government completely ignores the proven fact that Syria was the first to initiate an investigation into the incidents of the use of poisonous gases by armed terrorist groups, backed by the US, Western countries and Saudi Arabia,” the delegation added.

The US ambassador’s statement also ignores repeated attempts by the Syrian government to inform the world of the crimes committed and still being carried out by armed terrorist groups and their supporters against innocent citizens through the use of poisonous chemicals on more than one occasion, the delegation said, adding that the statement also disregards the evidence provided by the Syrian government to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the Joint Investigation Mechanism (JIM) that proved the possession of these groups of prohibited substances.

The US claim that Russia, which has helped set up the Mechanism, “has killed it” contradicts with the reality that proves the US and its allies are the ones who ended its task when the Mechanism refused to visit Khan Sheikhoun, and instead, it depended on fabrications of western countries.

The delegation added that instead of practicing this cheap method of misleading and empty statements, the US Permanent Representative should criticize the administrations of her country, which violated the UN Security Council resolutions that affirmed the commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic.

The statement also referred to the US-led coalition’s crime of destroying the city of Raqqa, where the bodies of innocent people are still under the debris.