Al-Jaafari Criticizes UNSC’s Inaction Despite Facts about Terrorists’ Attempts to Smuggle Sarin Gas from Turkey into Syria

NEW YORK, (ST)- Syria’s Permanent  Representative at the United Nations Bashar Al-Jaafari has stressed that the Security Council Resolution No. 1540, which provides for preventing terrorists from getting Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), still have some gaps as regards its implementation, noting that these gaps are being used by the terrorists to obtain these dangerous weapons as to carry out their criminal attacks.

He reiterated that the governments of some countries member in the Security Council are directly involved in providing the terrorist organizations in Syria with chemical weapons or with chemical agents necessary to produce such weapons.

 In a statement during a Security Council Session on Tuesday on the UNSC Resolution 1540, al-Jaafari said “the dangerous violations of Resolution 1540 are regrettably embodied in the terrorist organizations’ using of chemical materials against civilians and military personnel in Syria several times with the support of the governments of some Arab and regional countries and in collusion with the intelligence bodies of influential countries in the region, some of which are members of the Security Council.

Citing some examples about the terrorists’ chemical attacks, Al-Jaafari  said that on June 13, 2016, the terrorist organizations positioned in Housh al-Fara fired a homemade bomb containing chemicals on soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army. He added that on August 2, 2016, another group of terrorists attacked al-Awameed area in old Aleppo with shells containing poisonous gas killing six civilians and leaving 20 others with breathing problems.

Al-Jaafari went on to say that the terrorist groups have supplied 450 artillery shells, equipped with mustard gas, and sent them to Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

According to the Syrian diplomat, some Security Council member countries are still insisting on describing the terrorist groups, which carried out chemical attacks as ‘moderate opposition” after they are genetically developed in the labs of the intelligence bodies of these member countries, which keep providing this mercenary terrorist opposition with arms, money and logistic cover to prolong the crisis in Syria.

Al-Jaafari pointed out that the Security Council has done nothing despite all exposed facts about the terrorist groups’ attempts to smuggle chemical weapons, including sarin gas, across the Turkish borders into Syria and despite accurate reports on some countries’ being behind the chemical attack which targeted the town of Khan al-Asal in Aleppo Countryside and some Damascus countryside areas on August 21, 2013.

Al-Jaafri  renewed Syria’s call on the Security Council to assume its duties and guarantee that terrorists don’t possess any WMD , stressing Syria’s commitment to international resolutions and conventions regarding cooperation and the exchange of data in this respect.

Hamda Mustafa