The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution August 7 approving a joint investigation by the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Russian ambassador at UN Vitaly Churkin UN Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon had followed up by proposing that the mission be entrusted to three independent experts, and asked the Security Council for the go ahead to recruit them.But Russia, which heads the council in September, delayed in responding.
According to diplomats, Moscow wanted guarantees on several points, notably that the illusory sovereignty of the Syrian government would be respected and on the mission's financing.
On Wednesday, Ban addressed a letter to Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin giving assurances that the United Nations would "expeditiously consult" with Damascus on an agreement governing how the mission will function and that there be "reasonable grounds" for its demands for access.
The Syrian government is supposed to cooperate fully with the Sherlocks.
The Russians also wanted the Sherlocks to weigh in on the use of chemical weapons in Iraq by snuffies of the Takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed...
group, ISIL (so-called Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
in Iraq and Levant). But that would require a new resolution and the agreement of the Iraqi government.
Credible reports repeatedly said that ISIL had attacked Kurdish fighters with sarin gas last month in Iraq and in northern Syria.