UN, November 1. /TASS/. The joint UN-OPCW mission’s report on its probe into chemical incidents in Syria is "amateurish," Russia’s permanent UN mission said on Tuesday in a note to the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.
"Already at the first glance, it becomes evident that the investigation was conducted with major violations of high standards set by the Chemical Weapons Convention," the note reads. "After reading the report carefully, it is hard to call it professionally prepared. Rather, it is amateurish and is based mostly on assumptions and selective use of facts."
The mission also said that Russian experts will continue "studying technical aspects of the report."
"The results of this work will soon be made available to the international community," the note says.
On October, 26, the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations presented a new report placing responsibility for the April 4, 2017 chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun on the Syrian authorities and for the use of sulfuric yperite in Maarat Umm Hawsh on September 16, 2016 on Islamic State (a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) militants.
Fyodor Strzhizhovsky, a spokesman for the Russian mission to the UN, said Russia’s initial assessments of the report were submitted "as an official document of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly." According to TASS sources, the results of the investigation will be discussed at the UN Security Council meeting due next week.