Statement by Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council after the vote on the Bolivian draft resolution on the Joint Investigation Mechanism mandate in Syria
We are deeply disappointed that our initiative aimed at extending and improving the quality of the work of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) to investigate instances of the use of chemical weapons in Syria did not receive the necessary support.
We assumed that various tricks would be used in an attempt to blame Russia for a possible shutdown of the JIM’s activities. On 24 October, with exactly the same intention, we were deliberately made to exercise our veto when there was no need for a vote in the first place (see S/PV.8073). We are not ruling out the possibility that the intention of defaming our country has superseded that of preserving the Mechanism. We will now listen to numerous comments from our colleagues around this table, intended for the press. The world will be awash in lies about what transpired today in the Security Council. As usual, Russia will be blamed for everything.
I get the impression that no one listens to me or hears me when I speak.
Everything that I said in my statement — two statements, actually — was essentially ignored. We were accused of not taking part in consultations, even though we met at least three times at the expert level with our United States colleagues. We were accused of saying from the outset that we would not permit the adoption of the United States draft resolution.
That is true, because the draft resolution proposed by the United States entrenched the JIM’s fundamental errors. But we proposed our own initiative. We have been accused of playing games. We think it is not we who are playing games but others who are playing games with us. We have been told that we welcome the results of the work of the JIM when terrorists are accused of chemical attacks while at the same time we are covering up for the Syrian Government. That is not true.
We are protesting about the JIM’s blatant unprofessionalism, which is most likely intentional. To give an example from a different area, in an argument put forward in the Mechanism’s seventh report (S/2017/904, annex) in support of the claim that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) used mustard gas at Umm Hawsh, the only evidence was that it was claimed that ISIL had been observed using it in the past, and the other group involved had not. Is that a professional investigation? It is simply ridiculous.
We firmly believe that people who are paying attention will understand what is really going on. Let me reiterate that in the past few years Russia, as a conscientious party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, has done a great deal of work with regard to the chemical demilitarization of Syria, including, among other things, helping to establish and support the JIM.
During that entire time we have consistently sought to boost the effectiveness of its work, with no effort at understanding from a number of our Western partners. Today it was made crystal clear that we need a robust, professional investigative mechanism that will help to prevent the threat of chemical terrorism in the region from spreading, but what others want is a puppet entity so that they can manipulate public opinion, an entity that will repeatedly accuse the Syrian Government of violating international norms, based on false information.
Those who voted against the draft resolution submitted by Russia and China bear full responsibility for shutting down the activities of the JIM.
