The motion, proposed by Russia and China was voted down by the OPCW members, with 30 countries voting for and 82 — against it. Moscow and Beijing proposed establishing a special group that should probe the scope of OPCW mandate.
“Thirty delegations voted for the Russian-Chinese draft decision, 82 against, 31 more abstained, and 10 left the site of the vote. Thus, 71 delegations did not support the western camp. This means that the split in the OPCW is only deepening,” Russian Deputy Trade Minister Georgy Kalamanov noted.
READ MORE: OPCW Experts Poorly Handle Evidence Collected in Syria — Russian Envoy to OPCW
He also stated that Russia was unlikely to join the new attribution mechanism of the organisation.
“The amount by which the planned budget of the OPCW is to be increased was to be spent on attribution, the creation of the mechanism and recruitment of new employees for solving tasks that are not typical of the organization,” Kalamanov said.
Commenting on the issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticised the attempts to give the organisation the power to place blame.
“Opportunistic attempts to vest the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW… with the functions of a prosecutor are a gross violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, decisions of the UN Security Council and contrary to the position of the majority of states parties to the convention," he said at a meeting of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).