Al-Jaafari: Syria Waits UN Investigation Team on Chemical Weapons Use in Khan al-Asal
NEW YORK, (ST) _Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar Jaafari, stressed that media, political and diplomatic incitement and the hostile campaign against Syria, led by the parties that did not hide hostility since the beginning of the crisis, aims to increase pressure on the Syrian government.
In a press conference held at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday Al-Jaafari said that the Syrian government always confirmed it will not use chemical weapons against its people in the event of having it, pointing out that the Syrian government was the first party to request for a quick investigation to detect the perpetrators of the hideous crime in Khan al-Asal area in Aleppo on March 19th.
al-Jaafari noted that only few hours separated the occurrence of such crime and the Syrian request , pointing out that during these few hours all groundless accusations were made against the Syrian government , promoted by many Arab, regional and international political and media circles .
He indicated that initiative of the Syrian government in requesting the investigation emptied the campaign , a matter which pushed the delegations of France and Britain to the UN undermine the Syrian initiative by asking for an investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons in other parts of Syria.
” These same countries used different types of weapons of mass destruction, with Britain , as testified by Winston Churchill, who was foreign minister then , used chemical gas in 1920 in Iraq, against Iraqi tribes there when Churchill said :”I strongly support the use of poisonous gas against these uncivilized tribes” , while France carried out its first nuclear tests on living people in the Algerian desert , not to forget Italy ‘s use of these types of weapons against Libya and also to recall the use of chemical weapons by U.S. forces against Fallujah city in Iraq in 2004 and before that in Vietnam.”Al-Jaafari said.
“No one condemned all these inhumane practices nor talked about them and therefore, countries involved in using of mass destruction weapons are not entitled to hold others accountable”, he added .
Our region, in general and Iraq ,in particular still suffer the consequences of false allegations
“We expect the UN General Secretariat not to be part of this campaign against Syria and what happened in Iraq is still alive in our minds until this moment, and our region in general and Iraq in particular still live the consequences of such false allegations”, Jaafari said adding that the Syrian side asked for investigating Khan al-Asal incident , on the ground of which the Syrian government was accused of committing it although the attack in Khan Asal targeted members of the Syrian Arab Army.
Jaafari pointed out that the Syrian government which asked for the UN Secretary General cooperation to send a mission to investigate the incident of Khan al-Asal is still ready to receive the investigation team in less than 24 hours on the basis of the consensus that has been reached with the “Angela Cayenne” on April 4.
Jaafari regretted that Syria so far did not receive , despite repeated requests, any information about these allegations, rather the UN Secretariat has been releasing statements giving the impression that the Syrian government is not cooperating with it in the investigation.
Jaafari said that Cayenne confirmed in her message on 3 April 2013 that the investigation mission will consider the incident which the Syrian government tried to draw the attention of the Secretary-General for, and confirmed in a reply message willingness to discuss other logistic details pertinent to the work of the mission in Syria.
He continued that a short panel discussion was held to discuss these details on the afternoon of April 4 , but after the start of the debate Cayenne and her team delayed these discussions for the next morning in order to hold a long morning session allowing for an investigative mission to go to Syria as soon as possible, but “we were surprised the next day at the request Cayenne ignored the Syrian request, when she gave us a message contradicting what was stated in her first message on 3 April and all what we had discussed in the afternoon of 4 April and when we asked her about the reason for this contradiction she told us that the UN Secretary General received new information on the other Franco-British allegations , though he was then in The Hague.
Al-Jaafari surprised that the UN Secretary general to have had new information in less than 24 hours, while he was outside the headquarters on the incident he alleged occurred on December 23, 2012 , 4 months earlier, and also over disregarding several messages exchanged between the Syrian government and the Secretariat before this date.
Further doubts about UN General Secretariat attempts to politicize the issue
Al- Jaafari stressed that the UN Secretariat is Procrastinating to send an investigation mission to Khan al-Asal , a matter which leads to further doubts about the politicization of the issue as sought by some Western, regional and Arab countries , similar to what happened in Iraq before the invasion.
Jaafari said the Syrian government exchanged nine letters with the UN secretariat in response to 8 letters from the UN , the last one was on 29.4.2013 to this effect, adding that the Syrian government is still awaiting for a team of experts to the site Khan al-Asal to determine the accuracy of the information sent by the Secretariat , through cooperating with a specialized, independent, neutral and technical investigation mission .
Al Jaafari emphasized that in light of the progress made by the Syrian Arab army in the face of the armed terrorist groups , the terrorists brought unknown powder material in laminated bags , gathered citizens Shapur quarters and the southern entrance to Saraqeb city and opened the bags, and as a result a number of citizens had symptoms similar to those resulting from exposures to chemical weapons and then these terrorists transferred the injured persons to Turkish hospitals with the aim to accuse the Syrian armed forces of using chemical weapons.
T. Fateh