Press release

Foreign Secretary statement on international investigation into Syria chemical weapons attack

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) publishes a statement on its investigation into the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun in Syria on 4 April 2017. The OPCW confirms that deadly nerve agent sarin was used in the horrific attack.

• From: Foreign & Commonwealth Office and The Rt Hon Boris Johnson
• Published: 30 June 2017

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said:

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has now confirmed that sarin nerve gas was indeed used in a chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria on 4 April.

This confirmation cannot be ignored. The UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism will now work to identify who was responsible. As I have said previously, the UK’s own assessment is that the Assad regime almost certainly carried out this abominable attack.

I urge our international partners to unite behind the need to hold those responsible for this atrocity to account.

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Published 30 June 2017