Syria’s cooperation with OPCW met by western countries’ escalation

NEW YORK, (ST)-Some western governments refuse to acknowledge that Syria  has fulfilled all its commitments pursuant to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and has destroyed its entire chemical stockpile since 2014, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said in a statement during a Security Council session on Tuesday.

He added that these countries continue to adopt hostile stances against Syria and cover up the crimes of terrorists, particularly their use of chemical weapons and toxic gases against civilians in the country.

“Syria has repeatedly stressed that it didn’t and won’t use chemical weapons and that it is committed to continuous cooperation with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and its Technical Secretariat in order to close this file completely as soon as possible, stressed al-Jaafari.

 He made it clear that on September 16, Syria submitted to the OPCW’s Technical Secretariat its 82nd  monthly report on activities related to the destruction of chemical weapons and their production facilities, noting that the tripartite cooperation agreement between Syria, the UN and the OPCW was extended for six months starting from September 30. He pointed out that during the period between September 28 and October 1st , 2020, the 23rd round of consultations was held between the Syrian government and an OPCW team, which visited Damascus and implemented its program with full assistance by Syria.

“However, Syria’s cooperation was met by continuous escalation by Western countries. These countries promoted illegal mechanisms such as the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) that was created  in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The US administration also submitted a draft resolution to the Security Council that aimed at marketing and imposing lies,” al- Jaafari went on to say.

He stressed that this behavior confirms that some Western countries’ sought to use the Security Council in order to serve their expansionist and aggressive agendas and this uncovers the double standards policy adopted by the US administration in dealing with the chemical weapons issue, particularly because it is the only CWC member country which is still possessing huge stockpiles of chemical weapons since WWII and rejects  destroying  them.

Al-Jaafari indicated that representatives of some Western governments ignore the facts in order to cover up the terrorist organizations’ crimes  in Syria and their use of chemical weapons and toxic gases against civilians and they refuse to acknowledge  the fact that Syria has fulfilled all its obligations and destroyed all its chemical stockpile, a fact that was confirmed by Head of the Joint Mission to Eliminate Chemical Weapons in Syria Sigrid Kaag in her final report  submitted to the Security Council in June 2014.

The senior Syrian diplomat regretted the fact that the OPCW has lost it credibility and professionalism when it was turned by some western states into a tool to target certain countries including Syria.

He renewed Syria’s call on the OPCW member states to speak up against the politicization of the organization’s mission and to seek fixing the defects in its work that undermine the organization’s credibility. He also renewed Syria’s call on the OPCW’s Director-General to address the committed violations and fix the defects instead of bending to Western pressure and implementing the agendas of some governments that wish to keep the so-called “chemical file” as a pressure card against Syria and its allies.

He hailed an initiative by Russia and China for holding an informal meeting of the Security Council on September 28th in accordance with  the “Arria Formula” (The Arria Formula is an informal arrangement that allows the Security Council greater flexibility to be briefed about international peace and security issues) concerning the chemical file in Syria. He noted that the meeting was an important opportunity to hear the testimonies of experts in this field, including Ian Henderson, an OPCW  former inspector and Professor Theodore Postol from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US as well as journalist Aaron Maté from the “The Gray Zone” website, who revealed two weeks ago the involvement of the British intelligence in funding and supporting an anti-Syria propaganda.

Hamda Mustafa