NNA - Russia denounced U.N. investigators' findings on a poison gas attack in Syria as preconceived and tainted by politics on Wednesday, stepping up its criticism of a report Western nations said proved President Bashar al-Assad's forces were responsible, Reuters reported.



Russia, which has veto power in the Security Council, could cite such doubts about proof of culpability in opposing future efforts by the United States, Britain and France to punish Syria for any violations of a deal to abandon chemical weapons.



"We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the U.N. secretariat and the U.N. inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run Russian news agency RIA in Damascus.



"Without receiving a full picture of what is happening here, it is impossible to call the nature of the conclusions reached by the U.N. experts ... anything but politicised, preconceived and one-sided," said Ryabkov, who met Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem late on Tuesday and Assad on Wednesday.



The report issued on Monday confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used in the Aug. 21 attack but did not assign blame. Britain, France and the United States said it confirmed Syria's government, not rebels as Russia has suggested, was behind it.



Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday the investigation was incomplete without examination of evidence from other sources and that suspicions of chemical use after Aug. 21 should also be investigated.



Ryabkov said Syrian authorities had given him alleged evidence of chemical weapons use by Assad's opponents.



The stark disagreement over blame for the attack may complicate discussions among Security Council members - Russia, China, the United states, Britain and France - over a Western-drafted resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons.



"We are surprised by Russia's attitude because they are calling into question not the report, but the objectivity of the inspectors," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in Paris on Wednesday.



"I don't think anybody can call into question inspectors that have been appointed by the U.N.," said Fabius, who met Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday and said several aspects of the U.N. report clearly pointed to Syrian government involvement.


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