Written question asked by Chris Williamson (Independent (affiliation)) on Tuesday, 4 June 2019, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 6 June 2019. It was answered by Alan Duncan (Conservative) on Wednesday, 12 June 2019 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Syria: Chemical Weapons

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether an assessment has been made of the implications for the 12 March 2019 statement by the UK delegation to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that the UK welcomes FFM’s extremely thorough & well-evidenced report on the incident in Douma of the exclusion from that report of an engineering assessment by members of the Fact Finding Mission team.

Answer: UK stands by its assessment Syrian regime was responsible for the chemical weapon attack in Douma and by 12 March statement welcoming the Fact Finding Mission's report which drew a clear conclusion of reasonable grounds to believe that a toxic chemical, likely molecular chlorine, was used as a weapon on 7 April 2018. On 28 May the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Director General confirmed all evidence and views were considered in preparing the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) report. Technical Secretariat stands by the findings and we continue to have confidence in both our own and the FFM's conclusions.

Secondary information