Russia: ISIS militants access to chemical weapons production
Russian Foreign Ministry said ISIS terrorists have taken possession of production of chemical weapons, calling for investigating on cases of using these weapons in Syria and Iraq.
“In the ISIS case, this is already not only the use of chlorine for military purposes, what Damascus is usually accused of, although there has been no proof yet,” Director of Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for non-proliferation and arms control Mikhail Ulyanov was quoted as saying.
“There are facts against ISIS on the use of real chemical weapons – mustard agent, and possibly, lewisite the production of which demands use of rather complex technologies,” he added.
He pointed out that “All data show that ISIS group has indeed gained access to technologies of manufacturing chemical weapons,” highlighting that “A lot of facts of use of chemical weapons on the territory of Syria and Iraq by ISIS terrorists have been already registered.”
Ulyanov expressed regrets that the UN Security Council has not so far condemned these facts “first of all due to the position of our Western partners”, reiterating that Russia has repeatedly insisted on the respective response.
“The mandate of the joint activity of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on investigating the cases of the suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria could be extended for the territory of Iraq,” he said, adding that “There has been no decision in this regard yet, but we have already prepared and put the draft resolution on the UN Security Council’s table several weeks ago.”
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