“BREAKING: OPCW finds NO Chemical Weapons at Damascus research center” or so a report from The Duran claims, paired with the not-so-subtle subhead: “Narrative pushed by ‘expert’ American intelligence and political forces continues to unravel, revealing the corruption of foreign policy in Western governments.”
The Duran article, published Wednesday, relies on an article from the Russian news organization Sputnik, which says that Russian Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy “has announced that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had confirmed that there were no chemical weapons found at the Barzeh research center in Damascus despite the US officials’ claims.”
In response to the alleged April 7 chemical attacks in the Syrian suburb of Douma, the U.S., in league with France and U.K., launched strikes on three targets, including the Barzeh research center.
In 2014 the OPCW launched a fact-finding mission to “establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic.” The fact-finding team arrived in Damascus on April 14 to investigate the alleged chemical attack , but was barred by Russian and Syrian forces from investigating the sites until April 21.
The OPCW has now visited both sites of the alleged attacks in Douma but has not made any announcements as to what its findings suggest.
The report from The Duran and Sputnik claim that General Colonel Rudskoy “announced that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had confirmed that there were no chemical weapons found at the Barzeh research center in Damascus despite the US officials’ claims.”
In his briefing, however, Rudskoy referenced a report from the OPCW regarding inspections of the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities from last year.
“In 2017, laboratories of the [Barzah research center] were inspected by representatives of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” Rudskoy said, “the inspection showed absence of any activity relating to development and production of poisoning agents.”
A report from the OPCW states that after second round inspections of the facilities in Damascus were made in November of 2017 “the analysis of samples taken during the inspections did not indicate the presence of scheduled chemicals in the samples, and the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention.”
Claiming that the OPCW found “no chemical weapons at Damascus research center” without clarifying that the report in question comes from last year and is not part of the current OPCW fact-finding investigation is extremely misleading. The Duran also claimed that this “breaking,” which implies that the findings were recent, and not from last year.
The Duran and Sputnik did not respond to TWS Fact Check requests for comment.
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