Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzha said that the West refused to discuss in an open format the report of the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team on incidents in the Syrian village of Al-Latamn in March 2017 at the UN Security Council.
“Despite our open criticism of the illegal nature of the OPCW Investigation and Identification Unit, we had no objection to the Director-General of the OPCW making a presentation to the Security Council. Our only request was for this discussion to take place in an open manner”, – he said.
It was the Western countries that insisted on holding the meeting in closed format. It seems that slogans about openness and transparency of the Security Council do not matter.
Nebenzia stressed that such behaviour undermines the right of countries parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention and OPCW’s governing bodies, which are not allowed to see the content of this meeting.
Russia has decided not to participate in the meeting.