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4/24/2018 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minist… http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/2726881 4/6 Question: Will you comment, please, on the allegations made by the US Ambassador to the OPCW Executive Council regarding Russia’s continuing efforts to bury the truth about Syria’s mythical chemical weapons? Sergey Lavrov: Over the past few days, our American colleagues started saying that Russia had assumed the responsibility as the guarantor of chemical disarmament in Syria. As if the United States has nothing to do with this.. I would like to remind you that in response to Syria’s declaration of willingness to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and to eliminate its chemical weapons stockpiles, Russia and the United States proposed organising this under the auspices of the OPCW and with full UN Security Council support. The parameters of this procedure were coordinated exceedingly quickly. Within barely a year, the OPCW said in a report that the declared amount of chemical agents had been destroyed. This is a fact written in black and white in the OPCW report to the UN Security Council. In such cases, one can easily double-check certain aspects of the procedure taken to destroy the chemical weapons.. This isn’t the first time that the OPCW have had questions about the alleged use of chemical weapons. The Syrian government always cooperated with the organisation to answer these questions to mutual satisfaction. As for the proposal advanced by Russia and Iran to respond to Syria’s readiness to let an independent group of experts come into the country, I have the following to say. We have been accused of mistrusting the OPCW, whose Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) in Syria does not need any additional powers to investigate the April 4 attack and is already doing this. The FFM has two groups, one investigating the possible use of toxic agents by the Syrian government and the other by the armed opposition. So strange and such a coincidence, that both these groups are chaired by UK citizens. I am not implying that our UK colleagues are unprofessional, but we wonder about this lop-sided approach at an international organisation that must rely on a balanced approach, including geographically. Secondly, all information and facts about the use of chemical weapons by the opposition at the disposal of the Syrian government and the group of Russia’s Aerospace Forces in Syria, including the samples recently collected in Aleppo, are forwarded to the OPCW Secretariat in strict compliance with the transportation requirements. We forwarded samples that point to the possible use of chemical weapons in eastern Aleppo three months ago. However, we have not received as yet any response from the Secretariat. When accusations are advanced against the Syrian government, the OPCW reacts within just a matter of a few days. They express concern but never go to the sites of reported chemical attacks in the territory controlled by the armed opposition, claiming this would endanger their personnel. We consider such remote analysis to be unacceptable. Regarding the April 4 event in Idlib, Riyad Farid Hijab, head of the High Negotiations Committee, issued a statement in support of an independent investigation. This may mean that the leader of a large opposition group, which some regional countries support, is willing to guarantee the safety of the inspectors who would collect samples in Idlib. In the meantime, we have been told that this would not be safe, but we still don’t see any convincing arguments. Yet another strange element is that at the start of this story the United States demanded free access not just to the military airfield but also to some other military facilities in Syria. They requested access to the airfield at the very beginning, but yesterday the OPCW Secretariat representative said they woul