Organisation for the Prohibition

Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia, Theresa May has told MPs, according to BBC. 

The PM said it was "highly likely" Russia was responsible for the Salisbury attack.

The Foreign Office summoned Russia's ambassador to provide an explanation.

Russia has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution extending the mandate of the only official mission investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria, reported BBC.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) was set up in 2015 to identify perpetrators of chemical attacks.

It is due to report later this week on a deadly nerve agent attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in April.

Syrian forces have used chemical weapons more than two dozen times during the country's civil war, including in the deadly attack that led to US air strikes on government planes, UN war crimes investigators said.

Samples taken from a suspected poison gas site in Syria's northern Idlib governorate tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on April 13.

"Bulgaria categorically condemns the use of chemical weapons and chemical substances having a similar effect as tantamount to a war crime.

The death toll from a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held Syrian town has risen to 72, 20 of them children, a monitoring group said on Wednesday, cited by AFP.

"There were also 17 women among the dead and the death toll could rise further because there are people missing," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Mustard gas was used during summer fighting in Syria but it was not clear by whom, the global chemical weapons watchdog said on Nov 5, while jihadists seized a key town from regime forces.

A disarmament expert from Argentina has been appointed to head an independent panel tasked with determining who is behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the United Nations said on Sept.15.

The United States on July 9 asked the UN Security Council to set up an investigative panel to identify those behind deadly chlorine gas attacks in Syria.

Six people, including three young children, were killed in an alleged regime gas attack in northwestern Syria late Monday, a monitoring group and opposition activists said.