Splitting Airs
"We need to look into credible allegations. Unfortunately, I think what our western colleagues have been doing is trying to produce the maximum number of allegations with minimum credibility in an effort, one might think, to create maximum problems for arranging such investigation.
"The notion that Russia is blocking anything is completely misleading. We have been doing everything we could in order to make sure that that investigation were to happen."
Vitaly Churkin, Russian UN Ambassador
The investigation Mr. Churkin is so exercised about is one that he claims requires looking into, representing a March 19 attack by Syrian rebels on the government-controlled Aleppo suburb of Khan al-Assal. Where, the Syrian regime and their Russian supporters insist, the rebels made use of sarin gas in a chemical attack that killed 26 people, among them 16 members of the Syrian military. Another 86 people were said also to have been wounded.
It has been announced that Swedish chemical weapons expert Ake Sellstrom and UN disarmament chief Angela Kane have agreed to a Syrian government invitation to visit Damascus where talks are set to take place on the terms of a possible investigation. Such terms, needless to say, given Syria's refusal to permit UN investigators into areas where it has no wish to have them meddle, will all be to the regime's satisfaction. But the UN is anxious to be allowed access anywhere in Syria.
What has infuriated Moscow and Mr. Churkin is their claims that the US., Britain and France have raised completely false allegations against the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad; that it is the regime that has used chemical weapons. The investigations by the U.S., Britain and France have, according to their analysis, confirmed the claims by rebel sources that they have been attacked by the military, using sarin.
And while the regime-Russian claims are clearly credible, the rebel-U.S.-France-Britain charges, obviously are not. Because the regime says so, and they are backed in their assertion of innocence by Moscow. The trouble is that predictably, Syria has no intention whatever of permitting UN investigators access to the alleged areas in Homs, Damascus and elsewhere where the rebels claim the regime attacked them with chemical weapons.
To which, most inconveniently, Martin Nesirsky, UN spokesman on the matter, stressed that guidelines and procedures approved by the UN General Assembly are clear enough: "There can be no substitute for an on-site investigation at all relevant locations in the Syrian Arab Republic."
The delicacy of these trifling disagreements between bureaucrats and opposing sides is lost on the people of Syria, the civilians who are facing dire deprivation, food and potable water shortages, lack of medical attention and needed drugs, and above all, fear of death at the hands of either the regime or the rebels, neither side appearing to value much the human rights of those whom each insists they represent.
Faithfully yours.
Labels: Britain, Chemical Weapons, Controversy, France, Revolution, Russia, Syria, United States
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 13, 2013
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