US: Moscow working with Damascus to block chemical inspections in Syria

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) - State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert affirmed on Thursday that “it is now twelve days” since a Damascus suburb was attacked with chemical weapons, while inspectors from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have yet to be allowed to enter the site although they have been waiting in Syria since Saturday.

Nauert explained, “We have credible information that indicates that Russian officials are working with the Syrian regime to deny and to delay these inspectors from gaining access to Douma.”

“We believe it is an effort to conduct their own staged investigations,” she charged, adding, “Russian officials have worked with the Syrian regime, we believe, to sanitize the locations of those suspected attacks and remove incriminating evidence of chemical weapons use.”

She also charged that Syrians who spoke about the chemical attacks had been pressured by the regime “to change their stories.”

On Wednesday, a team from the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) went to two sites that the OPCW inspectors intended to visit. At one of the locations, the UNDSS team found a large crowd and decided to withdraw. At the second site, the team encountered small arms fire and an IED that exploded.

A decision was made not to send an OPCW team to the affected areas until their safety could be assured.

Russia claims that Syria did not carry out a chemical attack, and if there was such an attack, it was the work of rebels as opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Thus, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov claimed on Thursday that Syria was not impeding the OPCW’s investigation, but “militants who terrorize citizens” were responsible.

The more time that passes, the greater the difficulties in determining what chemicals were used. The US and other Western powers claim that Syria attacked Douma with sarin, a lethal nerve agent, and followed that with a chlorine attack, intended partly to conceal the sarin.

The new White House National Security Advisor, John Bolton, known as a hardliner on Russia, met on Thursday with that country’s ambassador to Washington, and the question of Syria arose in their discussion, as did the Russian use of a Novichok nerve agent in an assassination attempt on a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom.

Bolton told the ambassador “that it is in the interest of both the United States and Russia to have better relations,” a White House readout of the meeting stated.

“But this will require addressing our concerns regarding Russia's interference in the 2016 election, the reckless use of a chemical weapon in the United Kingdom, and the situations in Ukraine and Syria.”

Editing by Nadia Riva