Syria regrets that OPCW’s monthly reports focus on negative sides and promote them

NEW YORK, Jul.20, (ST)- Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh, said that some countries go ahead with their hostile policy and politicize the chemical file in Syria, regretting that Syria’s cooperation with the Organization for the Prohibition of chemical Weapons is met in denial as the organization’s monthly reports focus on negative sides and market them and ignores the positive sides.

“Syria has voluntarily joined the Chemical Weapons convention, and it completely cooperated with the OPCW and destroyed all its stockpile in a record time,” Sabbagh said at a UN Security Council session on Wednesday.

Sabbagh indicated that Syria submitted its 104th monthly report on activities related to the destruction of chemical weapons and their production facilities, and agreed to extend the agreement with the Organization for Prohibition and the United Nations Office for Project Services for a period of six months, i.e. until the end of next December, in order to facilitate the organization’s tasks and activities in Syria, and a field report was recently issued by the 8th inspection of the Center for Scientific Studies and Research, which confirmed the absence of any prohibited activity under the agreement and praised the great cooperation and facilities provided by Syria to the inspection team during that tour.

As for the high-level meeting between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates and the Director-General of the organization, Sabbagh clarified: “Syria immediately welcomed the invitation to hold this meeting and was keen to hold it as soon as possible and requested that the two sides agree on its place and agenda, but the Director-General did not respond until it came to him presenting an unprecedented excuse where he claimed during his opening speech before the session of the Executive Council of the organization earlier this month that he could not hold the high-level meeting in Damascus under the pretext of a decision by the Conference of the States Parties to suspend the rights and privileges of Syria’s membership in the organization, which everyone knows that Western countries imposed through pressure and blackmail.”

He added that Syria condemns the OPCW’s act of ignoring incidents where the terrorist organizations used chemical weapons though many years have passed on, and the OPCW non-commitment to the professional work methods included in the convention.
“Syria has persisted to provide committee of resolution No.1540 and the OPCW Technical Secretariat with information about Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists’ obtaining of toxic and poisonous materials in order to carry out chemical attacks or fabricate scenarios to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of the act,” Sabbagh added.

He also indicated  that France’s envoy directed a baseless accusation against Syria that only comes in the context of the hostile policy practiced by it since 11 years.

Sabbagh commented on the Albanian delegate’s claim that Syria wants to choose experts, by saying: “This characterization is wrong because it does not want that, but it has the right to accept or reject whoever it deals with, especially if it has evidence that any of the experts is biased and lacking objectivity.

Basma Qaddour