Russia urges UN to fully investigate Khan Shaykhun ‘staged’ chemical attack

Russia has called on the UN to fully investigate an alleged chemical attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun in April, saying evidence suggests the incident was a “staged attack.”

Speaking at a UN briefing in New York on Friday, the head of the Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mikhail Ulyanov, stressed the need for the incident to be "carefully studied.”

"We believe that JIM [Joint Investigative Mechanism] must work out all the versions, including airstrikes. At the same time, we expect that the version of the staged incident will also be carefully studied. Since, frankly speaking we tend more and more to opt for that version," said Ulyanov.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism is a panel of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is tasked with investigating the Khan Shaykhun incident.

Over 80 people died in the April 4 purported sarin gas attack on Khan Shaykhun in Idlib Province, which the Western countries blamed on the Syrian government.

The Russian diplomat showed photos and videos from the alleged scene of the incident, saying the photographic evidence of a crater from the scene shows that the bomb was detonated from the ground.

Presenting photos of a number of child victims of the alleged attack, Ulyanov noted that the children may have been "drugged," arguing that their dilated pupils would have been contracted had they been attacked by sarin.

"The question comes; who drugged those kids to heat up the discussion around chemical weapons," he said.

The US claimed that its investigations showed the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged chemical attack. Using the incident as a pretext, US warships fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from two warships in the Mediterranean Sea at Shayrat airfield in Syria’s central province of Homs on April 7. US officials claimed that the suspected Khan Shaykhun gas attack had been launched from the military site.

The Syrian government, however, fiercely denied using or even possessing chemical weapons since the country’s compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention was certified by international observers in 2013.

However, it noted that foreign-backed militants in the country possessed access to chemicals at two Syrian sites under their control at the time international chemical experts removed all chemical arms from the country in 2013.

In late June, the fact-finding team from the OPCW published the results of its probe of the incident, confirming that the chemical substance in the Khan Shaykhun incident had been the nerve gas sarin.

But it is now up to the Joint Investigative Committee to find the party that used the gas.

In response, Moscow described the OPCW report as “very biased,” arguing that the report failed to address the question of who was responsible for the gas incident and how the chemical had been used.

Read more:

• West rushed to judgment in Syria gas incident: Russia

Several countries, led by Russia and Iran, have strongly challenged the US and the West over their efforts to prevent an impartial probe into the Khan Shaykhun incident.

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