In a series of hard-hitting statements from Soviet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his deputies, Russia made clear that it will not accept any UN Security Council resolution that the imperial UK-French-Saudi-Obama axis came up with on Tuesday, Sept. 17 to:
- (1) put the enforcement of the chemical weapons agreement under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, that would open the door to possible military action; and
- (2) recommend International Criminal Court prosecution of Syrian President Assad for supposed war crimes.
Not only did Russia block yesterday's attempted railroading of the UNSC resolution, but Lavrov again blamed the chemical weapons attack of August 21 on the Syrian opposition, while indicating that Russia and Syria are putting together the case file to force an investigation of the rebels' CW activities, as they have been doing since Syria first demanded a UN investigation of the rebels' gas attacks in March 2012.
On Sept. 18, speaking from Moscow, Lavrov insisted on "an unbiased and impartial and professional" investigation into the alleged chemical weapons attack of August 21.
"We have much evidence to prove that this is a provocation," Lavrov said after his meeting with French Foreign Minister Fabius in Moscow, reported RTDTV. "But some of our colleagues still insist that only the Syrian government can use those chemical weapons. But only after confirmation can we call it a truth." Lavrov added that the UN report only proved that CW had been used, but not "whether the weapons were produced in a factory or [were] home-made," the Sept. 17 Independent reported.
As Lavrov was speaking in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was in Syria, where he met with the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, the Foreign Minister, and Assad himself, reported RIA Novosti. Ryabkov told the media that last month the Syrian government had given Russia evidence proving that opposition forces were involved in the use of chemical weapons. "This evidence must be analyzed," Ryabkov said. "Without the full picture of the events here [in Syria], we cannot but call the nature of conclusions drawn by UN experts... as politicized, biased and unilateral."
On Wednesday, Ryabkov met with President Assad and held a press conference after his series of meetings, where he warned against reaching conclusions about chemical weapons attacks in Syria that ignored the solid evidence that Syria has provided to the UN weapons inspectors.
According to SANA, the state Syrian news agency, Ryabkov expressed Russia's "disappointment" that the Syrian government "proofs have not been given adequate attention in spite of their importance," in the words of SANA.
"The conclusions which were discussed in New York during the past two days were limited," Ryabkov said. "Therefore, we have to see the whole picture and look for clear-cut evidence before coming out with conclusions and indications."
Ryabkov also asserted that any UN Security Council resolution on Syria must be limited to supporting the work of the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based on the Russian-U.S. agreement in Geneva, SANA reported.
In New York, where the UNSC was meeting about Syria on both Sept. 17 and 18, Syrian Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari gave an address to the UN General Assembly, which had received a report of the UN inspectors. Jafaari laid out a history of Syria's appeals for an investigation of the rebels' chemical warfare attacks, cited reports in the U.S. and Turkish media of the rebels supplies of chemical weapons, and pledged full cooperation as laid out in the Russia-U.S. Framework.
SANA reported: "Al-Jaafari affirmed the Syrian government's readiness to commit to cooperation with the OPCW in abiding by the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which he said Syria agreed to join by a legislative decree issued by President Bashar al-Assad.
"He also expressed Syria's readiness to unveil all its chemical stockpiles, its crude components, and the sites of production and storage according to the primary implementation of the Convention."
