UN Security Council Rejects Russian Resolution Supporting OPCW Mission in Syria

UNITED NATIONS- On its third vote of the day, the United Nations Security Council voted against Russian’s draft resolution to support the fact-finding mission in Syria’s Douma, where an alleged chemical weapon attack recently claimed the lives of innocent civilians, Sputnik reported.

“The draft resolution has not been adopted, having failed to obtain the required number of votes,” said UN Security Council President Gustavo Meza-Cuadra.

 The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is considered the world’s leading watchdog agency on the use of such weapons.

Russia, China, Bolivia, Kazakhstan and Ethiopia voted in favor of the resolution, while France, the United States, Britain and Poland voted against it. Other members of the 15-member council abstained from voting.

Earlier in the day, two resolutions to reconstruct the UNSC’s mechanism for investigating alleged use of chemical weapons failed. The US drafted one of the resolutions, while Russia drafted the other.

To clarify, the OPCW is already on its way to the relevant area of Syria, as supported by the UK and Russia on Monday. The Russian envoy offered for Syrian and Russian forces to escort the investigators to the site.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said it was a “frustrating day” for diplomats at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzya urged the US to hold its fire regarding the matter. “The threats you are proffering… vis-a-vis Syria should make us seriously worried, all of us, because we could find ourselves on the threshold of some very sad and serious events,” he told Haley.

“I would once again ask you, once again beseech you, to refrain from the plans that you’re currently developing for Syria,” he said after the vote.

OPCW to send chemical weapons investigators to Syria’s Douma

According to RT, the international chemical weapons watchdog will send a fact-finding mission to Douma, Syria, to investigate the reports of an attack there. The move follows calls from Moscow and Damascus to launch an international investigation.

 “Today, the OPCW Technical Secretariat has requested the Syrian Arab Republic to make the necessary arrangements for such a deployment. This has coincided with a request from the Syrian Arab Republic and the Russian Federation to investigate the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma. The team is preparing to deploy to Syria shortly,” the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a statement on Tuesday.

H.M