The situation surrounding the alleged chemical weapons incident in Syria requires international experts to make a prompt visit to the town of Khan Shaykhun and the Shayral airbase, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said ahead of the special session of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), scheduled to resume in The Hague on April 19.
«The situation requires a group of international experts to make a prompt visit to the scene of the alleged chemical attack as well as to the Shayrat airbase, as our opponents claim that the chemical attack was launched from there. The Fact Finding Mission has been collecting information remotely, refraining from visiting the scenes, while it has also been adjusting its conclusions to previously set political goals that we don’t share, so we are not satisfied with these investigation methods,» TASS cited Ryabkov as saying.
Ryabkov noted that Russia calls on the OPCW to end fruitless public disputes over Syria.
«We offer a reasonable alternative that we expect to break the current deadlock and allow to end fruitless public disputes over Syria. We hope that members of the OPCW Executive Council, as well as of the Technical Secretariat, will show high responsibility at this sensitive time,» the Deputy Foreign Minister concluded.