Assad seems to change stance - No entry for UN team to investigate chemical attack
Syria will not accept a chemical weapons team, as proposed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, to probe the alleged use of chemical weapons in the country's conflict, the foreign ministry has said. Rebels and the government of Bashar al-Assad have traded blame for an alleged March 19 attack in the village of Khan al-Assal in northern Syria.
"The Syrian news agency has put out a statement saying that it believes Ban Ki-moon is widening the investigation to look at a number of other allegations of the use of chemical weapons," Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from the UN's headquarters in New York, said.
The UN team has gone to Cyprus and is waiting to carry out the investigation, two weeks after the UN secretary-general received a request from the Syrian government itself to examine the reported use by opposition forces. Syria had asked the UN only to investigate what it says was a rebel chemical attack near Aleppo.
Meanwhile, the opposition has blamed President Assad's forces for that strike and also wants the UN team to probe other alleged chemical attacks by the government. There have been three alleged chemical weapons attacks - the one near Aleppo and another near Damascus, both in March, and one in Homs in December.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/04/20134902634350447.html
Investigate the one we say they did but not the two they say we did. Otherwise, we are not allowing you into the country.
