Russia is concerned about the situation with the so-called Syrian chemical dossier, said Alexander Shulgin, Russia's Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction, speaking on Tuesday at the 96th session of the Organization's Executive Council.
"We cannot but be alarmed by the way things are going," said the diplomat. According to him "official Damascus is demonstrating openness and an unconditional readiness for close cooperation with the secretariat, which is proved by another round of bilateral consultations held the day before". However, Shulgin continued, there are forces that are trying to artificially slow down the removal of issues on which the discussion has been exhausted, and are using double standards by presenting demands to the Syrians which are not presented to other states.
"Russia advocates the kind of work that would best contribute to finding a solution to all unresolved issues regarding the Syrian declaration," stressed the diplomat. - "Obviously, if there is the political will of all participants of this process, even more progress in this direction is achievable. As the recent closure of a number of important topics showed, it is necessary not to shift accents in the direction of the negative, but to encourage a positive dynamic in this area".
Shulgin also mentioned the Fact-Finding Mission on the Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria (FFMS). He emphasized that the Russian side insisted that the mission must work strictly within the framework of the Chemical Weapons Convention and abandon untenable and dubious remote investigations. "The manipulation of the final report on the Syrian Douma incident has caused serious damage to the organization," he added. With that in mind, he called on the tech secretariat to get to the bottom of what did happen, "as the silence and reticence calls into question the FFMS work on other incidents in Syria as well."
Reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria's Duma on April 7, 2018, were spread by a number of non-governmental organizations, including the White Helmets. Representatives of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of the Warring Parties conducted a survey of Duma on April 9, 2018, but found no traces of chemical weapons use there. The final OPCW report on the Duma incident noted that a toxic chemical containing chlorine had been used as a weapon. At the same time, the document claimed that the cylinders of chemicals found at the site of the incident had been dropped from the air. However, in May 2020, a document appeared on the Internet questioning this version. In it, one of the OPCW experts claimed that it was highly probable that both cylinders had been placed manually at the site of the attack. These conclusions, which speak in favor of the Russian and Syrian versions of the staged nature of the incident, were not included in the final report.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Mikhail Metzel / TASS
Based on materials from TASS