The UN OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) report regarding Khan Sheikhoun has sharply divided opinion, largely because the US and some of its closest allies choose to maintain its central finding of “confidence” the Syrian Arab Republic was guilty is a finding of indisputable fact, whilst Russia (with the open or tacit support of others) […]
Russia has vetoes 11 draft resolutions on Syria which it says are unfair and biased, often following “fabricated” evidence [Xinhua]
Russia has for the second time this week vetoed a draft resolution in the Security Council aimed at renewing the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), which investigates chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The vetoed drafted presented by Japan to the Security Council on Saturday was designed to give JIM a temporary extension to continue its work.
(Analysis) — A new United Nations-sponsored report on the April 4 sarin incident in an Al Qaeda-controlled town in Syria blames Bashar al-Assad’s government for the atrocity, but the report contains evidence deep inside its “Annex II” that would prove Assad’s innocence.
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a report this September that reinforced the official narrative that the Syrian air force dropped a bomb containing nerve gas sarin on the insurgent-controlled town of Khan Sheikhoun, Syria on April 4. That conclusion comes several weeks after the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) issued a report that supported sarin exposure as the cause of death and injuries.
Headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP/Peter Dejong)
The head of the team charged with determining responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria appealed to governments on Thursday to stop exerting political pressure on investigators who will report in mid-October on two incidents, including an April 4 attack that killed over 90 people.
Men in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, inside a crater where a sarin-gas bomb is alleged to have landed.
What do you call a report based on a chemical attack alleged to have occurred in a specific site, the authors of which refused to even visit the site? One might call it a farce. This is broadly what Russia has said of a report from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the alleged chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib Governorate said to have happened on the 4th of April, 2017.
President Donald Trump walks from the podium after speaking at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday, April 6, 2017, after the U.S. fired a barrage of cruise missiles into Syria. (AP/Alex Brandon)
