OPCW Team Starts Investigation into Allegations about Using Chemical Weapon in Syria’s Idleb

THE HAGUE— An international team has started investigation into allegations about the use of chemical weapon in Khan Sheikhoun in Idleb countryside, Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Ahmet Uzumcu said Friday.

Uzumcu told The Associated Press in an interview that the team, made up of experts from his group and the United nations, is already working.

“They have some staff, up to 15 I guess, who have started working in our premises here,” Uzumcu said. “And we will of course share all available information about recent incidents with them.”

An initial report by an OPCW fact-finding mission is expected next week. It will not apportion blame, but aims to establish whether chemical weapons were used.

The Russian foreign ministry said Thursday that reaching a conclusion on the alleged use of chemical weapon without visiting the alleged chemical attack site is similar to the analysis fabricated by radicals from the so-called “Syrian opposition”.

 Uzumcu, a Turkish diplomat, has said the mission has analyzed samples, including blood, urine and tissue, taken from Khan Sheikhoun alleged victims and found, as he said, “incontrovertible evidence that they were exposed to the nerve agent sarin or a similar toxin.”

But Uzumcu said they are still working to figure out exactly what happened.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has denied that the Syrian government used toxic gases in Khan Sheikhoun or in any other Syrian city or village and it stressed that the Syrian army doesn’t possess any kind of chemical weapon and it hasn’t used such weapons and won’t use them in future.

Hamda Mustafa