Russia calls on the OPCW to abandon the doubtful and remote investigations into Syria

Hague (ST): Russia has expressed its concern about the discussions taking place in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) regarding the allegations of Syria’s use of chemical weapons, calling on the Organization to work within the framework of the Chemical Weapons Convention and to abandon remote, unrealistic and suspicious investigations.

A few days ago, Russia demanded the OPCW to conduct an honest and reliable investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the city of Douma in the Damascus countryside in 2018, stressing that the success of the Organization’s work depends on this matter.

The Russian news agency TASS quoted the permanent representative of Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Alexander Shulgin as saying during the ninety-sixth session of the Executive Council of the Organization which was held in The Hague that the manipulation revealed in the final report on the alleged incident in Douma caused serious damage to the Organization, calling on the technical secretariat to look into what happened because silence and ignorance cast doubt on the work of the fact-finding mission and other incidents in Syria.

WikiLeaks previously published four documents leaked from the OPCW that exclude the use of chlorine gas in Douma, and reveal that toxicologists have ruled out that deaths were due to exposure to chlorine.

Shulgin added that Russia is concerned about how things are going in the Organization, stressing that Syria is showing openness and unconditional willingness to close cooperation with the Organization’s technical secretariat, as evidenced by the next round of bilateral consultations held recently, adding but there are forces trying in a artificial way to slow down the removal of issues from the agenda and ask, via double standards, demands that are not imposed on other countries.

On the other hand, Shulgin stressed that the suggestion that experts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons travel to Russia to investigate the incident of the Russian activist Alexei Navalny has lost its importance.

 Shulgin stressed that the Russian side did not withdraw the proposal for experts from the Organization to travel to Russia, but only stated that in view of the non-constructive approach that the Technical Secretariat followed, the visit had lost its importance, adding that the Technical Secretariat apparently continues to implement the political directives of a party in the framework of the frenzied anti-Russian campaign that unfolded over the situation with Navalny’s European NATO allies.

K.Q.