Russian envoy calls UN inspectors for “immediate return” to Syria

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin called for an “immediate return” of organization’s inspectors to Syria for additional investigations into alleged use of chemical weapons, RIA Novosti said.

UN inspectors said Monday, September 16 that they had found “clear and convincing evidence” that chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, were used in an August 21 attack that killed hundreds of people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday the provided report did not answer many questions and urged an additional UN investigation into allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria.

Churkin said that besides the incident in Ghouta the UN mission, which was led by Swedish professor Ake Sellstrom, should investigate other instances of alleged use of chemical weapons “including the incident on March 19 near Aleppo as well as incidents of intoxication of Syrian government troops on August 22 and 24-25.”

“We hope that the full implementation of the mandate of Sellstrom’s mission will give an objective picture of the events in Syria,” Churkin said.

The inspectors had no mandate to determine who had launched the Ghouta attack - which the US and some of its Western allies have attributed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but Moscow and Syria have called a provocation by anti-Assad rebels.

Russia said on Tuesday it still suspected an August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria was carried out by rebel forces, despite a report by UN investigators which France said showed the government was behind the attack, according to Reuters.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius set out their countries' opposing views following talks in Moscow, one day after the investigators confirmed the deadly nerve agent sarin was used in the attack.

"We have very serious grounds to believe that this was a provocation," Lavrov said of the attack, which the United States has said killed more than 1,400 people in rebel-held areas.

Speaking alongside Lavrov at a joint news conference after their talks, Fabius said the report was convincing.

"When you look at the amount of sarin gas used, the vectors, the techniques behind such an attack, as well as other aspects, it seems to leave no doubt that the (Assad) regime is behind it," Fabius said.