Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzi at a UN Security Council Briefing on the Syrian Chemical File
Mr. President,
We’d like to thank Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs for her briefing.
We paid particular attention to those passages in the monthly report by the OPCW Director General Fernando Arias following his visit to Damascus in February that are geared towards fully-fledged resumption of the work of the OPCW's Declaration Assessment Team (DAT) in the country. In general, we welcome any developments that could contribute to resolving the outstanding challenges related to Syria’s initial declaration, but we do believe that the OPCW Technical Secretariat and the States Parties to the CWC are bound to ensure a depoliticized, impartial and professional approach to closing the Syrian chemical file.
We stand ready to cooperate constructively on this track. Everyone is well aware that it is owing to Russia’s efforts that Syria joined the CWC in 2013 placing its chemical arsenal under international control. However, we are not going to connive at attempts to politicize this issue. Nor are we going to level unsubstantiated accusations against the former government or tout this issue through various fabrications. There should be no scope for any artificial deadlines, and it is inappropriate to settle scores under the guise of closing the Syrian chemical file.
Unfortunately, we still have reasonable doubts regarding the OPCW's ability to conscientiously perform its purely technical functions given that the level of politization of its work has been off-scale for many years.
What also attests to the existing problems is the contentious (to put it mildly) language of the report under discussion today, which states that the current political situation in the SAR is supposedly conducive to the OPCW Technical Secretariat receiving the fullest possible scope and coverage of information on Syria's chemical-military program. First, such assessments go far beyond the mandate of the OPCW Technical Secretariat. Second, it is unclear how we can discuss any new or additional inspections at sites or collection of evidence in the field when the territory of the SAR has been constantly bombed (suffice it to recall the assertions by the French President in April 2018 about the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons production and storage sites). Such a take on what needs to be done was rendered absolutely meaningless by Israel’s massive missile strikes over the past three months, those strikes were aimed at eliminating any trace of Syria’s military-defense capabilities.
Under these circumstances, we can hardly be sure that the deployment of a fully-fledged OPCW mission in Syria will not boil down to fresh frenzied provocations and groundless accusations that Syria is allegedly using chemical weapons and concealing part of its former military-chemical program. We would like to warn you right away: given the OPCW Technical Secretariat’s working methods and the practice of creating illegitimate structures under its auspices, which we have witnessed in recent years, no conclusions by this body would enjoy trust of the international community.
In this context, we are alarmed by the recent statements of the OPCW Technical Secretariat that the former Syrian authorities allegedly obstructed the work of that body. Such allegations seem inappropriate, since it is the technical Secretariat’s leadership that repeatedly refused to meet with the head of the respective Syrian national body in charge of the CWC in Damascus, even though such a meeting could have helped to settle contentious issues. Regardless of the current political context, we should not forget that from the very moment of joining the Convention, the Syrians have always demonstrated unprecedented openness and willingness to cooperate with the OPCW, which, however, remained unresponded by The Hague. What makes the current situation even more complex is the fact that – as far as we know – there is simply no one in Syria who we can talk to professionally. This is because all people who used to be in charge of interaction with the OPCW are now out.
Furthermore, when working on the Syrian chemical file under these new conditions, we must keep in mind the numerous instances of the use of toxic chemicals and chemical warfare agents by radicalized extremist groups, including ISIL fighters. ISIL does possess technological and production capacities to synthesize various chemicals prohibited under the CWC, which is evidenced in particular by UNITAD reports and by a number of objective reports by the OPCW fact-finding mission that documented the facts of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, namely the instances in the town of Marea on September 1 and 3, 2015.
Thus, contrary to what the OPCW Director General claims about conditions being supposedly conducive to the swift closure of the Syrian file, we note that in the current environment, it seems to be an extremely complicated formula with many variables. In addition, I repeat, the OPCW Technical Secretariat has its the reputation tarnished in the eyes of the entire developing world, due to the inappropriate political games and shenanigans it was involved in. The situation is going to become even more complicated if there are new groundless accusations levelled against the former Syrian Government. In these circumstances, we insistently recommend that Mr. Arias and his team focus their efforts on examining the data and the facts already available and on ensuring subsequent professional investigation so as to close the outstanding issues.
We also call on our colleagues on the Security Council to fully take into consideration the peculiarities of the domestic political situation in Syria when deciding on approaches to deal with the Syrian chemical file. Namely, Syria is encountering today a whole host of existential problems: the country is struggling to preserve its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and unity; it needs to ensure national reconciliation, to form the State apparatus, to prepare and hold general elections, to restore the State's monopoly on the use of force, and to address the threats emanating from terrorist groups.
Over the last few days we’ve received very alarming news from Syria, indicating that stabilization is still far off. It is clear that, under these circumstances, verifying information about the presence or absence of chemical weapons is in no way a top priority for the current Syrian authorities. We need to understand that and not to push ahead with this topic.
Thank you.
