MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax) - The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has compiled its report on the incident that allegedly took place in Syria's Saraqib on February 4, 2018 hastily, raising questions about its content, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"It is obvious that an independent and comprehensive investigation of the Saraqib incident was not the purpose of the corresponding FFM report," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department said.
"Apparently, it only pursued one goal: discrediting the legitimate Government of Syrian Arab Republic based on fakes planted by the opponents of Damascus. This is, in turn, only playing into the hands of terrorist entities operating in Syria, encouraged them to further carry out subversion acts involving the use of chemical weapons," the ministry said in a commentary.
As evidence of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Saraqib, the FFM was primarily looking at material and testimonials provided by White Helmets, a non-governmental organization, the ministry said. "We have caught red-handed this pseudo-humanitarian organization before, [caught them] disseminating disinformation, juggling with facts and participating in staged provocations," it said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also drew attention to the fact that the procedure used by the FFM in collecting environmental samples in the suspected place of chemical weapons use "is contrary to the fundamental principle of the FFM's operation, the so-called chain of custody principle, which requires a clear procedure for subsequent actions to ensure preserving of material evidence from the moment of its collection by OPCW inspectors and all the way to the certified laboratory where the evidence is supposed to be analyzed".
Moreover, authors of the commentary "have no doubt that the document was compiled hastily, using an established template left from previous FFM reports, particularly that one on the incident that happened in al-Latamna in March 2017", the ministry said.
"The statement made by Heather Nauert, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, who gave the FFM report the highest marks should be read in the context of the above. We strongly disagree with such an evaluation," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.