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Syrian diplomat calls on OPCW experts to visit Khan Shaykhun

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. The Syrian government has serious doubts about the impartiality of a report by the Fact-Finding Mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the alleged use of sarin in Syria’s Khan Shaykhun on April 4, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters.

The diplomat said "despite the offer of the Syrian authorities, the OPCW experts refused to visit this settlement to take samples." "How can we trust their conclusions if they had not visited the site," Mekdad said, according to the state television.

Mekdad noted that citizens of Khan Shaykhun earlier confirmed that there had not been any chemical attack and all the information had been fabricated by the armed gangs and the Western intelligence.

"The Syrian authorities also expressed readiness to provide an aircraft for the special mission for the arrival at the Shayrat airfield (in the Homs province) but its specialists did not use this opportunity," he said. "The United States did not allow them to go there to avoid a revelation."

The OPCW report, published on Thursday, says that sarin or a similar nerve agent was sprayed in the city of Khan Shaykhun. As a result, 100 people were killed. The report will be handed over to the joint UN-OPCW investigative commission that would determine those responsible for the attack.

The incident involving the alleged use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib province took place on April 4. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, Syrian aircraft struck terrorists’ workshops that were producing chemical agents. Washington accused Damascus of using chemical weapons, after which the US Navy delivered a missile strike in the small hours of April 7 on a Syrian military airfield in the province of Homs.