Russia on Friday criticized a United Nations report that blames Syrian government for a chemical weapons incident in Khan Sheikhun, with deputy foreign minister saying there were flaws in the methodology and that biased evidence was used.

“Even the first cursory read shows that many inconsistencies, logical discrepancies, using doubtful witness accounts and unverified evidence… all of this is still (in the report),” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency.

According to Ryabkov, conclusions were derived from “all the same evidence and testimony, which cause us great doubts due to the bias of sources and due to non-compliance with the requirements of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, according to the sequence of collection and storage of material evidence.”

“All these logical inconsistencies, internal contradictions are visible even after the first cursory reading,” the deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

The OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism on the use of chemical weapons in Syria on Thursday presented a report to the UN Security Council on the incidents involving the nerve gas sarin in Khan Sheikhun on April 4, 2017 and mustard gas in Umm Hosh on September 15-16, 2016.

The US fired several dozen cruise missiles at the Syrian airbase in response to an alleged government chemical attack in the province of Idlib.

Source: Agencies