Syria tells Russia it has proof rebels used chemicals It looks like new evidence is demolishing Obama/JKerry + Co's allegations against Assad .. "Syria has given Russia new material evidence that Syrian rebels used chemical weapons in an attack on 21 August, a Russian minister has said. ""Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also said a report by UN inspectors on the alleged use of chemical weapons was politicised, biased and one-sided. He said the inspectors had only investigated the attack in Ghouta on 21 August, not three previous incidents. The UN team found the nerve agent Sarin was used in the Ghouta attack. The report did not apportion blame for the attack but Western nations blame the government forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Damascus - backed by Russia - says opposition forces are to blame Meanwhile the chief UN weapons inspector, Ake Sellstrom, has told the BBC it will be difficult to find and destroy all of Syria's chemical weapons, but he believes it is "doable". "Of course, it will be stressful work," he added. Mr Sellstrom said much depended on whether the Syrian government and the opposition were willing to negotiate. Distorted UN REport In an interview with Russian media, Mr Ryabkov said the Assad government had given him new evidence that rebel forces had used chemical weapons. He did not give any details of what those weapons were. "Just now we were given evidence. We need to analyse it," he told RT news organisation. Mr Ryabkov also criticised the UN report, saying it was "distorted, it was one-sided, the basis of information upon which it is built is not sufficient, and in any case we would need to learn and know more on what happened beyond and above that incident of 21 August". "We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the UN secretariat and the UN inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely," he told the RIA news agency. The UN inspectors were originally mandated to go to Syria to investigate three alleged chemical weapons attacks - at Khan al-Assal, Sheikh Maqsoud and Saraqeb. But after the 21 August attack in Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, their instructions changed - and the report they produced is based purely on that incident. A further UN report on the other locations will not be released until October. The UN experts were not required to apportion blame in their report.====== extract : When Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed his deal with John Kerry at the weekend, some may have seen that as a sign that Russia was coming around to the American stance on Syria. But Russia's actions this week have quickly dispelled that view. Moscow has refused to accept the American, British and French interpretation of the UN chemical weapons inspection team's report. It has now even started to undermine Ake Sellstrom's team themselves. The Russians and the Syrians are fighting on multiple fronts at the moment in the PR war, and this suggests they do not want to give too much ground. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24140475 ....
But I guess the word отравляющий газ inscribed on the missile debris really would ask who did use russian missiles carrying nerve gas in the conflict.
The key question is, 'Would a government invite in inspectors and immediately use the weapons they had come to look for?' If the Saudi-backed groups didn't use them it must surely have been someone on the Government side who wanted to get rid of President Assad, unless he is a lot further off his trolley than he sounds to be. The 'West' decided to write off any meaningful diplomatic settlement by demanding that President Assad should resign first (now there's a neutral stance for you!) and made totally clear they were desperate for yet another long, murderous and pointless war to get at Iran for their oil. Thank God that even our sick, wasted, grovelling, tory-obeying Labour Party, like many tories, was driven by the voters to vote against yet more of this tedious (*)(*)(*)(*) and started the move towards people power that has so far stopped the war-mongering gets.
