MOSCOW. June 5 (Interfax) - Support to a Syrian warring side through the UN Human Rights Council creates difficulties in preparations for an international peace conference on Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"The use of the UN Human Rights Council for playing into the heads of a side to the internal Syrian conflict, i.e. the radical opposition, does not help the search for a solution to the crisis, in particular, in the context of preparations for an international peace conference on Syria," says a report published on the ministry website on Wednesday.
A fresh report of the independent investigative commission on Syria was discussed at the 23rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 4, it said.
"Delegates of some countries took advantage of the one-sided and partial report for one again unfoundedly blaming the government for Syrian events, without saying a word about numerous crimes and violations of human rights by armed radical groups," the ministry stressed.
It noted that Russia raised objections against the establishment of the commission but did not refuse to cooperate with it later on. "Therefore, we regret to admit that experts did not use the opportunity to listen to victims and eyewitnesses to the violence of the Jihadists, in particular, in Khan al-Asal, Qusayr, Homs and Aleppo, although we provided the commission with phone numbers and e-mails. That significantly depreciated the work of the commission and its report," the ministry said.
According to the ministry, commission experts admitted that Syrian militants, many of them extremists, were responsible for lynching, tortures and abductions, used children in combat operations and committed other crimes.
"At the same time, the commission again preferred not to describe the explosions staged by militants in Syrian cities as terror attacks. It also kept silent about other atrocities of the Jihadists, such as multiple episodes of sexual violence against women. All that is happening against the backdrop of numerous testimonies of crimes of armed Islamists against the civilian population published in the media," the report said.