British chair to both OPCW probes on Syria ‘chemical attack’ is against int’l principle – Lavrov

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It is “a strange coincidence” that both OPCW fact-checking missions investigating the alleged chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib are headed by UK citizens, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that it “runs contrary to the principles of an international organization.”

“I would like to remind you that we have pointed out a very strange coincidence: that the two groups of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on the potential use of chemical weapons in Syria are chaired by UK citizens,” Lavrov said answering to an RT question at a joint news conference with his Senegalese counterpart on Tuesday.

This, according to the minister, “runs contrary to the principles of an international organization, the structures of which must be maximally balanced.”

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Moscow to press OPCW & UN to send experts to probe Idlib chemical incident in Syria – Lavrov

The Q&A session comes ahead of a new round of Syrian peace talks in Astana, preliminary scheduled for early May. The OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) is an international organization set to make sure countries stick to the Chemical Weapons Convention, banning the use of such weapons and requiring their destruction.

"British citizens chairing the OPCW FFM don’t tell anyone anything, while British scientists have already analyzed samples taken at the site of the incident,” Lavrov said, referring to a recent interview by UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who was quick to lay the blame for the attack in the Idlib province on Damascus as well as Russia and Iran.

“He [Johnson] said that British scientists have analyzed samples from the site of the attack, and that these have tested positive for sarin or a sarin-like substance,” the Russian minister said.

Yet Lavrov has called for “an objective and unbiased” as well as a “fully transparent” investigation in Syria to be carried out by the OPCW “with assistance from independent experts.”

Moscow is concerned about the attempts made by some countries to dictate the OPCW their “hasty judgements and is calling for an immediate investigation on the ground,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said earlier Tuesday.