Moscow proposes setting up mission under OPCW auspices to investigate Idlib events

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MOSCOW. April 13 (Interfax) – Russia has submitted an initiative during a special session of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague on Thursday to set up a mission under OPCW auspices to investigate the chemical incident in Syria’s Idlib governorate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference.

“The OPCW Executive Council is holding a special meeting in The Hague today. During it, we have submitted our suggestion to form such a delegation on the basis of this organization and to include additional inspectors in it, which is necessary given the colossal and not very constructive repercussions around this entire story,” he said.

An OPCW mission should visit both the airfield that was the target of the U.S. missile strike and the Idlib governorate’s town of Khan Sheikhoun, the site of a possible chemical attack on April 4, Lavrov said.

Russia is “strongly worried by such eagerness of foreign partners in the UN Security Council to try in every possible way to dodge an honest investigation into this episode,” he said.

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