Syria Rejects OPCW Report as ‘Distortion of Facts’

Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on March 1 a “toxic chemical” containing chlorine was used in an attack on April 7, 2018, in the town of Douma, near the capital Damascus.

“The Syrian Arab Republic categorically rejects the conclusions of the mission team,” the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.

“(The report) was no different to previous reports from the mission, which were full of blatant distortion of facts.”

Syria’s foreign ministry said the investigation “ignored statements from witnesses who experienced this incident and who described the claim that chemical weapons had been used in Douma as having been a play put on by armed terrorist groups.”

The statement blasted the US, the UK and France for using the alleged attack as a pretext to conduct aerial and missile raids in Syria “that destroyed scientific centers which include laboratories for peaceful purposes.”

At the time, Douma was held by rebels but besieged by Syrian forces. It came back under government control later that month after years of siege.

The OPCW investigation did not assign blame and confirmed that it had found no traces of banned chemicals but said the information gathered offered "reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018."

Syria surrendered its entire chemical stockpile in 2013 to a mission led by the OPCW and the UN.

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