Moscow-Sana
Russia's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Alexander Shulgin, criticized the continuation of Western countries to politicize their work and their attempt to use their authority to impose their own vision as an alternative to the rules of international law, pointing in this regard to the focus of these countries on targeting Syria and their blindness to the facts that confirm their permanent cooperation with the organization.
Today, in summarizing the results of the meeting of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, on July 6 and 9 in The Hague, Shulgin was quoted by the Russian TASS news agency as saying that “while Western countries continued to criticize Syria in the Executive Council session, the Russian side tried to take into account the unprecedented openness. Which was demonstrated by the Syrian government in cooperation with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons seven years ago after its accession to the organization.
“Our colleagues from the Oronato Group prefer not to notice this fact and focus only on criticism,” Shulgin added, referring to the positions of NATO countries and European countries hostile to Syria, stressing that this “clearly illustrates all the ins and outs of their actions in using the organization’s power to instill their own vision of the world order on the basis of The rules of “responsible conduct” they invented instead of the rules of international law.
On the “Investigation and Identification” team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Russian side reiterated that it “has not and will not recognize the legitimacy of the decision to impose attribution in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which was passed in June 2018 by vote,” noting that this group is “engaged in publishing suspicious reports.” It is used by a certain group of countries as an excuse to put pressure on a number of countries... This further politicizes the work of the OPCW and divides its ranks.”
In a related context, Shulgin denied the validity of what was claimed by a report of the “Investigation and Identification” team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which was submitted on April 11, that “the Syrian Air Force dropped a chlorine bomb in February 2018 on the city of Saraqib, which is controlled by the militants in the Idlib governorate, to avenge a plane "The Russian Su-25" that was shot down by the militants earlier".
Shulgin stressed that Russia considers “the attempts of Western countries to artificially link the alleged chemical incident in Saraqib and the downing of a Russian Su-25 aircraft on the eve of that day to be totally unacceptable, and this was clearly clarified during the session of the Executive Council.”