MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, UK Ambassador to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft said at the UN Security Council that UK specialists had detected sarin or a sarin-like substance in samples taken from the site of the supposed chemical attack in Syria.
"There is an interesting coincidence — the British lead the fact-finding mission, they have not told anyone what this mission is doing, but the UK researchers have already examined the samples. I think that we are lodging a request to explain what is going on today," Lavrov said at a press conference.
He noted that the two fact-finding departments of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are headed by UK nationals, which "does not really comply with the principles of an international organization which envisages the structure of all the bodies as balanced as possible."
"We will not let efforts taken for the political regulation in the Syrian Arab Republic be undermined," Lavrov stressed.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on April 5 that the airstrike by the Syrian air force had hit a terrorist warehouse that stored chemical weapons slated for delivery to Iraq, and called on the UN Security Council to launch a proper investigation into the incident.
Assad said that his government had never used weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, against the Syrians, and all the chemical weapons which had been stored by the government before the deadly incident in East Goutha in 2013 had been destroyed under the OPCW's supervision.
