New York: The U.S. State Department has criticised the Syrian government as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded that ‘Sarin’, a banned nerve gas, was used in April 4 aerial attack in northern Syria’s Idlib province that killed nearly 100 villagers, including children.
The report was shared with United Nations diplomats on Friday.
The findings were not a surprise as Turkey and the United States had said that the victims showed symptoms consistent with Sarin gas, and the Trump administration responded to the attack with the launching of missiles aimed at Syrian targets.
The United State’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, even issued her own news release announcing the report’s basic conclusions.
“Those conclusions had been widely expected, partly because the organization announced on April 19 that preliminary analysis showed ‘incontrovertible’ evidence that the Khan Sheikhoun villagers had been exposed to Sarin”, the New York Times reported.
The report constituted the first confirmation from the Hague-based organisation, which monitors the Chemical Weapons Convention that most nations of the world, including Syria, have signed.
“We have the highest confidence in the O.P.C.W. report, which confirms what we already knew: chemical weapons were used against the Syrian people,” Haley said.
She said the report will be forwarded to a joint commission of the organisation and the United Nations “to independently identify who was responsible for this horrific attack.”
The joint commission was created by the U.N. Security Council to determine which combatants have been using chemical weapons in Syria. (ANI)