Russia says international commission's Syria report biased

The latest report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria was neither objective nor balanced, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. "The experts (of the commission) cite difficulties to collect evidence of the victims as they were unable to enter the country. However, they did not use many other possibilities," the deputy head of the ministry's information and press department, Maria Zakharova, said in an online comment. Citing a conference held in Geneva on March 7, at which many victims of the Syrian violence testified, Zakharova said: " Hundreds of witnesses are ready to arrive for testimonies against the (Syrian) rebels. Still the commission is reluctant to include this information in its reports." She added that the commission's experts also refused to define the bombings conducted by the rebels as "terror attacks." The Russian diplomat accused some members of the UN Security Council of using the commission for blocking resolutions intended to condemn these deadly attacks, calling it a practice of double standard. "The international efforts (on Syria) must be focused on stopping violence and launching an inclusive political dialogue in accordance with the Geneva Communique," she stressed. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria was established in August 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council, with a mandate to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in the Middle East country since March 2011.