Sergey Lavrov blasts OPCW for failing to conduct investigation in Khan Sheikhun

Russian Foreign Minsiter Sergey Lavrov has criticised the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for refusing to investigate the site of the infamous alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria’s Idlib Governorate, said to have happened on the 4th of April.

The organisation which oversaw the removal of chemical weapons from the possession of the Syrian government in 2013/2014 has drawn its conclusion over the alleged attack in Khan Sheikhun without having visited the region.

READ MORE: 3 reasons why reports of a Syrian chemical weapons attack on Idlib are fake news

It seems unfathomable that any group, in this case the OPCW could pretend to actually care to find out what happened on the 4th of April without first conducting a full investigation on the ground. They instead relied on autopsies of alleged victims conducted far from the site and not even in Syria. In this instance, they were mostly conducted in Turkey.

Sergey Lavrov described the situation in the following way,

“This is strange, because the decision did not stipulate anything other than to conduct an independent, impartial, transparent investigation with an expert visit to the site”.

He continued,

“We will expect that after all, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will send experts to Khan Sheikhoun and to the (Sha’irat) airfield strictly on the basis of its mandate, which requires the widest possible geographical representation of experts”.

Lavrov called for the OPCW to act in a fully transparent manner, echoing previous calls for a full investigation of the site, a site around which no one has yet come forward to ask for medicines or antidotes for the gas they would have been exposed to, assuming US narrative was indeed accurate.

READ MORE: Russian Defence Minsitry: No one has asked for antidotes or medicines around location of alleged Idlib chemical attack