Efforts to organize consultations with Syria not succeed – UN
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) efforts to organize the next round of consultations with Syria continue to be unsuccessful, a senior official of the UN for Disarmament Affairs told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Adedeji Ebo, Deputy to the High Representative of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, stressed, in a Press Release, that full cooperation by Damascus is essential to closing its chemical weapons file.
This came in the meeting of the UNSC on chemical weapons file.
The official reported that because the Syrian National Authorities had not submitted completed declarations, the Technical Secretariat has deployed a reduced team of the Declaration Assessment Team to Syria to conduct limited in-country activities.
Declaration submitted by Syria still cannot be considered accurate and complete, he reported.
Mohamad Katoub, Project Manager at IMPACT — Civil Society Research and Development, warned that the same regime that used chemical weapons with impunity is still in power and the same Russian Federation allies are still supporting Syria’s war criminals.
“The Assad regime is betting this Council will simply move on,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the representative of the United States.
It is clear now that al-Assad “regime” never planned to comply with such efforts, and he has repeatedly lied to the international community and investigators and has repeatedly obstructs the work of OPCW, according to the US representative.
A day before the meeting, Opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) urged the Global Coalition to take steps against the “Syrian regime” for using chemical weapons against his own people.
In February, The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) of the OPCW issued a report confirming the use of the toxic chlorine as a weapon in an airstrike that targeted the city of Kafr Zeita in the northern countryside of Hama, north Syria, on 1 October 2016.
In August, US Permanent Representative to the OPCW Ambassador Joseph Manso said that his country believes “the Syrian regime” has used chemical weapons at least 50 times during conflict in war-torn Syria.