UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) — A press secretary of the Russian Mission to the UN has told Sputnik that Sweden and Uruguay have submitted a new draft resolution on the resumption of the JIM's mandate.
On Thursday, Russia vetoed the US draft resolution that sought to prolong the JIM's mandate, which was about to expire on Friday, while Russia's own draft on the mission failed to gain the required number of votes.
"Sweden and Uruguay have submitted a new 'compromise' draft [resolution] to the UNSC," the mission's representative said.
The Russian parliament's International Affairs Committee chairman Leonid Slutsky said on Friday that the criticism of western states with regard to Russia's veto on a UN Security Council resolution extending an international probe into the use of chemical weapons in Syria is unfounded and is being used to undermine Moscow's image on the international arena.
"The criticism of the western states regarding Russia's veto at the UN Security Council [UNSC] on the US-drafted resolution on the prolongation of UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism's mandate to investigate chemical attacks [in Syria] is absolutely unjustified. The West is once again trying to introduce an uncoordinated resolution through the UNSC, meanwhile Russia's proposals on the issue are being rejected," he said.
In late October, the JIM presented to the UN Security Council a report on the April 4 chemical attack that took place in Khan Sheikhoun of the Syrian Idlib province, reportedly killing over 80 people with a toxic nerve agent sarin. The report blamed the Syrian government for the gas attack. The panel also accused Daesh terrorist group of using chemical weapons in an attack on Syria's Um Housh in September 2016. The Russia's Mission to the United Nations said that the report looked more like an amateur document and was based mostly on assumptions and selective use of facts.
The Syrian government has rejected allegations of its responsibility for the attack and criticized the report's conclusions, noting that the experts had not carried out the investigation directly at the scene of the incident in Khan Sheikhoun.
