Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Remarks to the press by Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, before the UN Security Council meeting on Kosovo

Q: Have you seen the JIM (Joint Investigative Mechanism) report? What do you think about it?

 

V.Churkin: It is a very thorough technical document. First, we need to study it and we will see what comes out of it. I saw some in the media predicting that there is going to be a confrontation between Russia and the US in the Security Council over it – it does not have to be the case, because JIM is a creation of the US and Russian delegations working together. It was a very complicated process. Yesterday I already talked to Ambassador Power, who is on vacation, we did talk nevertheless and we agreed that as soon as she gets back from vacation we will get together and see what can be done on the basis of this report.

But first of all it needs to be studied, it is not as simple as that, because the whole thing is presented in the media in rather simplified way, which is understandable on one hand because media wants to explain how things are, but it is a very complicated report which needs to be studied by experts.

 

Q: In two cases it seems to be conclusive.

 

V.Churkin: If you had an opportunity to read the report you would see that it is quite complicated.

 

Q: What actions could be taken? Sanctions?

 

V.Churkin: First of all we need to have our experts in our capitals read the report, understand what is in the report. We will discuss it in the Council on August 30th. One should not be rushing to conclusions, one has to work very deliberately. We have a joint interest in discouraging such things from happening and preventing such things from happening even in the fog of war. It’s very important, as far as we are concerned, that  the report says quite definitively that ISIL was involved in the use of mustard gas - this is very important because usually all talk we heard about any use of chemical weapons was an effort to ascribe things to the Syrian government. The conclusion that ISIL was involved is drawn quite definitively. I think is an important statement. Other than that we need just to do our job very professionally.