THE HAGUE, October 14. /TASS/. Members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are seriously concerned over the use of white phosphorus by Israel, Russia’s Ambassador to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the organization Vladimir Tarabrin said after the OPCW Executive Council’s regular session last week.

During the session, "developing countries expressed serious concern over the situation in the Middle East and Israel’s use of white phosphorus among other substances," he said, adding that this is not an officially prohibited substance but its use as a weapon is banned.

The Russian delegation raised the issue of the use of chemical weapons by Ukraine. In particular, ahead of the session, Russia distributed a note based of the findings of the laboratory of the Russian defense ministry’s 27th research center providing concrete examples of the use of chemical weapons by Ukraine. This topic was highlighted by Russian representatives during the session.

"Apart from that, we held a briefing on the sidelines of the conference dedicated to issues of both the used of chemical weapons by Ukrainians and the United States’ and other Western countries’ abuses of their commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention," Tarabrin said. "This briefing attracted interest from member countries."