Lavrov—UN Chemical Weapons Report Incomplete

September 18, 2013 • 12:17PM

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking in a press conference after meeting with his French counterpart, declared the UN report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria to be "incomplete" and called for further investigation into the multiple reports of chemical weapons use in Syria. The report did not identify "where the weapon was made — at an official factory or using homemade methods.... We asked in the U.N. Security Council — we received no reply — as to where the ammunition was produced or to other questions."

Asked about the Cyrillic inscription on one of the shells (as reported in the UN report), Lavrov pointed to the illegal weapons traffic both during the Libya war and the current Syria civil war, often with Soviet-era weapons: "So many weapons have been circulating in this region back from the Soviet times and the recent times. The weapons, which were supplied to Libya in defiance of the U.N. Security Council embargo [by Qatar in league with Obama], are being spread throughout North Africa, and probably even beyond it.... We are seeking for the illegal [trade] of Soviet-era weapons continued in many countries to be halted. Several EU and NATO states take this as a profitable business and are reluctant to agree on this to be halted."

Lavrov also strongly rejected calls (such as those from Sec. Kerry and Ban Ki Moon) for a UN resolution to be passed now under Chapter 7, allowing a military action if the agreement is breached. He posed two scenarios: "Whether we stick to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and wait until someone states that the current rulers or the opposition used chemical weapons, and drag in absolutely impermissible emotions, or we rely on professionals who should study each report of this kind in detail and objectively and report to the U.N. Security Council. Moscow still has serious reasons to believe that the use of chemical weapons near Damascus was a provocative act."