TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian legislator said the UN inspectors' report confirming the use of chemical weapons in Syria indicated that the rebels had conducted the August 21 attack on Ghouta in Damascus countryside."The report shows that the Syrian government has not used chemical weapons," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Nozar Shafiyee said Wednesday.
"The UN inspectors have confirmed the use of chemical weapons but it is not yet clear who has used such weapons and this is the biggest winning card and opportunity for Syria," he added.
Shafiyee explained if the report had found that the Syrian government was to blame for the attack, the UN which is highly influenced by the US would have spared no moment to announce that result, that is to say now that such a thing has not been announced, the rebel groups have, thus, used such weapons against the Syrian people.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said Monday that results of a report by UN inspectors confirming the use of chemical weapons in Syria are overwhelming and indisputable.
This is a grave crime. Those responsible must be brought to justice and soon as possible," Ban told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. He also emphasized that this is the largest chemical attack in many years.
UN inspectors said Monday that there is "clear and convincing evidence" that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in an attack last month in Syria that killed hundreds of people, including Syrian military men and civilians. Ban presented their report to a closed meeting of the UN Security Council in New York Monday morning.
The findings represent the first official confirmation by scientific experts that chemical weapons were used in Syria, but the report left the key question of who launched the attack unanswered. The rebels and their US and Western supporters have said the government of President Bashar Assad was behind the Aug. 21 attack, while the Syrian government and its closest ally, Russia, blame the rebels.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday the report did not answer many questions and called for additional UN investigations into allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria.
The US position that the Syrian army was behind the August 21 attack had prompted Washington to threaten "limited" retaliatory military strikes against Syria. This plan was put on hold last week after Lavrov put forward a proposal, based on off-the-cuff comments by US Secretary of State John Kerry, that a strike could be avoided if Syria were to put its chemical weapons under international control.
On Saturday, after days of intense negotiations, Lavrov and Kerry announced an ambitious plan under which all chemical weapons in Syria would be opened up to international inspectors by November and destroyed by mid-2014.
By Fars News Agency
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