The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) opened an investigation on Sunday into reports of the repeated use of chlorine bombs this month in the district near the Syrian capital, diplomatic sources told Reuters. Use of chlorine as a chemical weapons is prohibited under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. The latest OPCW mission is seeking to determine whether chemical weapons were used in violation of the international weapons convention which Syria signed in 2013 after hundreds died in a massive sarin gas attack in Ghouta. Syria and its close ally Russia, which provides military support to Assad’s forces, deny using chemical weapons and blame insurgents. A UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism, established by the United Nations to identify those responsible for chemical weapons attacks, concluded in 2016 that Syrian government forces had used chlorine as a chemical weapon in three cases.

Source: bd News24 February 27, 2018 09:56 UTC