Ambassador Attiyeh: Washington and its allies continue to politicize the work of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

The Hague (ST): The Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ambassador Milad Attiyeh, affirmed that the continued politicization of the work of the Organization by the United States of America, some Western countries and Turkey puts its ability to carry out its mandate under the Chemical Weapons Convention to the test and threatens its future.

Delivering Syria’s statement during the opening of the ninety-ninth session of the Organization’s Executive Council today, Ambassador Attiyeh warned that the expansion of chemical terrorist threats has become a serious threat to international peace and security, pointing out that no country is safe from this dangerous threat.

Attiyeh said, “The Syrian Arab Republic affirms that the behavior of some parties, led by the United States of America, some Western countries and Turkey in covering up the crimes and practices of terrorist groups in Syria, encouraged those terrorists to commit more heinous crimes against Syrian citizens, including the use of toxic materials over the past eight years inorder to accuse the Syrian government of it.”

 Attiyeh explained that despite the difficult and complex circumstances that Syria has gone through, the United States is still making false and flimsy excuses to justify not fulfilling its obligations to destroy its chemical arsenal until this date, stressing that what Syria has been subjected to during the past years within the Organization, in addition to the politicized and misleading approach, raised a serious question we have about the organization’s ability to carry out its mandate under the agreement and how well it can withstand pressures from the United States and its Western allies.

He considered that this serious challenge does not concern Syria only, but is considered a global problem of a systematic nature, because the organization has turned into a tool for political manipulation that has kept it away from its professionalism and credibility, especially the approach taken by Western countries by passing decisions in their decision-making bodies through voting and absence of consensus and disrespect for the views of other countries.

Attiyeh expressed his regret that this technical Organization was again involved in purely political and security issues and expressed deep concern about the state of affairs, stressing that what is required is to stop this continuous decline in the course of the Organization’s work and to begin seriously and urgently to correct it to return it to the implementation of its mandate entrusted to it as the basic and neutral pillar for the chemical weapons non-proliferation system.

He affirmed that Syria is once again keen to pursue positive and constructive cooperation with its technical secretariat.

Attiyeh pointed out that Syria faced a historically unprecedented campaign of skepticism and false accusations of not cooperating with the Organization and its technical secretariat, indicating that some countries pre-empted the results of technical consultations that are still ongoing between the Syrian National Committee and the “Declaration Evaluation Team,” taking advantage of what was stated in some reports related to the Syrian Declaration” and other reports issued by the Organization in this regard, despite Syria’s assertion that some of the technical issues being discussed between the two sides are related to different scientific interpretations and therefore cannot be resolved in a distorted and selective manner, and no one has the right to jump to accusations directly about issues that are still subject to discussion and research.

K.Q.