MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. The decision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) not to arrange an investigation on the ground of reports about chemical attacks in Syria has created perfect conditions of falsifications, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.
"The OPCW fact-finding mission has failed to visit any of the sites where chlorine was presumably used," the ministry said. "Why? Because the very first visit to Syria by the mission’s experts in the spring of 2014 ‘coincided’ with a large-scale militants’ provocation with the use of chlorine in the province of Idlib."
"But when OPCW specialists tried to visit the site of the presumable incident at the prompting of the opposition they were taken hostage, which was, as a matter of fact, the end of any further work of the mission’s experts on the ground in areas not controlled by Damascus," the ministry noted. "This was how the mission and later the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism started their malpractices of to accept in all good faith reports about alleged use of chlorine by government troops fabricated by the Syrian opposition and various non-government organizations backing it."
"So, it is no longer necessary for the mission to put itself to bother to visit the sites of presumable use of toxic agents as there are alleged security threats to the OPCW and UN personnel," the ministry noted. "And what about the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2118, 2209 and 2235 which oblige all the parties to the Syrian conflict to ensure unimpeded access to the sites chemical accidents for international experts?"
Such situation "has created perfect conditions for the armed opposition and those who back it to filter practically all information on incidents they report that is referred to the fact-finding mission and further on to the Joint Investigative Mechanism and, apparently, it has told on the quality of reports of both structures," the ministry stressed.