Russia: OPCW’s report on the alleged Douma chemical incident aims to justify the Western aggression against Syria

Moscow, (ST) – The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that the aim of the latest report issued by Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the “alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma in 2018” is to justify the Western aggression against Syria.

“It is clear that the task of the investigation team, which it was unable to implement in the end, was to justify the aggression of the United States, Britain and France against Syria under the pretext of the Douma incident, yhd Novosti news agency quoted the Russian ministry as saying in a statement.

The ministry pointed out that the report of the OPCW claims that it refutes the conclusions of the Syrian and Russian experts that were presented to the OPCW, the UN Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly and that confirmed that the West fabricated the Douma chemical incident.

The Russian Foreign Ministry statement continued that what is considered another evidence of the politicized and paid nature of this report is also the unsuccessful attempts of the investigators and their sponsors to form an impression that the  activities of the Syrian armed forces around the city of Douma were supervised by the Russian side.

The Ministry added that as for the accusations that we did not provide the investigation team with information that would confirm the Russian version of the chemical provocation, Russia and a number of other countries proceed from the illegality of this body, and did not intend to cooperate with it for principled considerations.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that all materials confirming the fabricated nature of the chemical incident in Douma, including the report of the Russian military, are available in open sources, including the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the official signatories of the OPCW and the United Nations.

Syria had previously confirmed its total and detailed rejection of the report issued by the so-called “Investigation and Identification Team” of the Organization for Prohibition on the alleged incident.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that no sane person or specialist can reach the misleading conclusions of the authors of this report.  This team who neglected all the objective observations that were raised by states parties, experts, academics, documented media reports, and former inspectors from the organization who are known for their experience and knowledge. It stressed that this misleading report was not surprising to Syria, and it came to confirm once again the correctness of Syria’s position on the reports of the OPCW.

Raghda Sawas