Syria rejects expanding UN probes into chemical weapons
DAMASCUS,(ST)_Foreign and Expatriates Ministry has rejected the UN Secretary General’s demand to expand tasks of the specialized technical mission formed to investigate the use of the terrorist groups of chemical weapons against civilians in Khan al-Asal in Aleppo province.
An official source at the ministry said the extra tasks demanded by Ban Ki-moon contradict the Syrian demand and indicate plotted intentions of the states, which have sought to add them, as they mean to allow the mission to spread across Syria.
This, the source added, is a breach of the Syrian sovereignty.
It regreted that the UN Secretary General had yielded to pressures of the states which back bloodshed in Syria.
Maneuvers
“Syria can’t accept such maneuvers from the UN General Secretariat, taking into consideration the negative role it played in Iraq to pave the way for the US invasion,” the source said.
It underscored that Syria was and still ready to cooperate with the General secretariat as regards sending the mission, immediately, to Khan al-Asal according to the latter sent by Foreign and Expatriates Ministry to Ki-moon on April 5th.
Last month, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Bashar al-Jaafari, asked Ki-moon to form a “specialized , independent and neutral technical mission to investigate the use of the terrorist groups of chemical weapons against civilians.
The letters exchanged by the two sides in this regard till April 3rd, indicated positive progress, but it was stopped after Ban Ki-moon’s demand made during his existence in the Hague.
Basma Qaddour