THE HAGUE, April 7. /TASS/. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Friday it will provide no comments on the United States’ air strike at a military airbase in Syria’s Homs Governorate that the United States claims to be a response to the presumable use of chemical weapons in the Idlib Governorate on April 4.
"Political topics are outside of the scope of issues for comment by the OPCW Technical Secretariat," the OPCW told TASS.
"The OPCW is investigating the incident in southern Idlib under the on-going mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which is to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic," it said. "The OPCW cannot and will not release information about an on-going investigation. This policy exists to preserve the integrity of the investigatory process and its results as well as to ensure the safety and security of OPCW experts and personnel involved."
The organization asked all parties "to respect the confidentiality parameters required for a rigorous and unimpeded investigation."
On Thursday night, the US forces fired 59 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) on a Syrian military air base located in the Homs Governorate. The attack came as a response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Idlib Governorate on April 4. The US authorities believe that the airstrike on Idlib was launched from that air base.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the attack killed four Syrian servicemen while another four were wounded and two went missing. Media reports say that nine civilians were also killed.
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow considered this attack to be an act of aggression against a sovereign state. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the aggression was carried out under a false pretext.