Following Monday's United Nations report on the findings of chemical weapons in Syria, Russia announced that it plans to present evidence to the Security Council "implicating Syrian rebels in a chemical attack" on Aug. 21.
The U.S. and other Western allies believe that the U.N.'s report proves that the Syrian government used chemical warfare against rebels in a suburban neighborhood in Damascus. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared Wednesday that "Russia will provide the UN Security Council with data proving that the chemical weapons near Damascus were used by the opposition," Russia Today reports..
Last weekend, Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reached an agreement on Syria turning over its chemical stockpile for international inspection.
During a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Wednesday, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia was disappointed with a UN investigation into the chemical-weapons attack, calling it "politicized, biased and one-sided."
The United Nations countered that the report made by its weapons experts was "thoroughly objective" and its findings "indisputable," the BBC reports
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky on Sept. 18 brushed aside the Russian criticism, saying that the facts "speak for themselves." He said that the report's conclusion that rockets loaded with sarin gas were used in the Aug. 21 attack should not be questioned.
However, Lavrov maintains that the report did not dispelled Russia's suspicion that rebels staged the attack to try to provoke Western military intervention in the Syria conflict. The report does not assign responsibility, Moscow claims.