Remarks by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at "Arria-formula" meeting of UNSC members on risks stemming from politicization of the activities of the OPCW
Colleagues,
I welcome you to this informal Arria meeting of UNNSC members dedicated to the risks stemming from politicizations of the actions of OPCW.
Members of the Security Council must be well aware of this problem. At the insistence of Western states, we have to listen to unsubstantiated allegations against Damascus in connection to its chemical file at the monthly meetings of the Council on the implementation of UNSC resolution 2118. For political considerations, they do not agree to optimize the schedule of such meetings. But as soon as we talk about the real problem - the shameless attempts of the collective West to use the OPCW Technical Secretariat in their own selfish interests, they try to either shut us up or accuse us of politicizing the Organization. Today, we just propose to talk calmly and objectively and figure out who is really "troubling the water".
We have a clear answer to this. We have seen how in recent years almost any mention of the OPCW has been politicized in an anti-Syrian and anti-Russian spirit. The traditional resolution of the General Assembly on the implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has acquired a distinctly propagandistic character. Consensus has been lost on an important symbolic resolution on cooperation between the UN and the OPCW, the content of which has long exceeded the scope of this issue. It has come to the point that any debate on the issue of chemical weapons turns into a political debate that has nothing to do with the fulfillment of OPCW's statutory tasks.
In the first place, this trend is harmful for the OPCW itself. We have long paid attention to the irregularities in its operation, which surfaced with the beginning of the politicization of the Syrian "chemical file", despite the fact that Damascus destroyed its chemical arsenal long ago and continues to cooperate with the Technical Secretariat. Today we have invited as a briefer Mr. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, President of the Vienna International Institute for Middle East Studies. Mr.Soltanieh, former Permanent Representative of Iran to the UN and international organizations in Vienna, has huge expertise in the area of disarmament. In 2013, the Syrian government invited him as an adviser to assist in the accession of Damascus to the Chemical Weapons Convention. We are grateful to Mr. Soltanieh for his readiness to share today his experience and truly expert assessments of the OPCW's activities at the Syrian track.
Problems at this track were piling up for years and assumed increasingly menacing proportion. It would take a while to enumerate them all. However, to ignore the most obvious violations that impede the normal functioning of the OPCW would be the wrong thing to do. In this connection, we highly appreciate the activities of our second briefer for today, Mr.Aaron Maté, a contributor to “Grayzone”, who has shown a true example of independent journalism by bringing to the public the egregious cases of falsification of the results of the 2018 Douma investigation by the OPCW Fact Finding Mission for Syria (FFM), which were reflected in a report of this mechanism.
We hope that member states will fully realize the extreme seriousness of the topic under discussion today. After all, this is not just musings by some individuals, but an official report of the OPCW on the work accomplished, something that the Director General of the Organization fully subscribed to. We call you to think about this and estimate what would have happened if a staged incident, like the one in Duma, had occurred on the territory of another state, and the OPCW, instead of performing its functions as an independent international organization in strict accordance with its mandate, had been forced by external pressure to promote a vision that is beneficial to someone, while ignoring for years the inconsistencies that inevitably would have risen in this case.
Today Mr. Maté is ready to share his independent assessments of the latest report of the so-called Investigation and Identification Team of the OPCW regarding the same Douma incident.
We hope that today member states will be able to hold a meaningful discussion of this completely unacceptable situation, identify potential options for correcting it and exchange views on what practical measures may help prevent the politicization of the OPCW, as well as other international organizations.
Closing remarks:
We called this meeting in order to discuss the dangerous implications of politicization of the work of OPCW and look for ways to remedy the inadequate situation within the Organization. We regret that instead of committing to this goal, some delegations chose to narrow down this discussion to the allegations against Russian and Syria. We also see this happen in the Security Council meetings and in the General Assembly. 102th session of the OPCW Executive Council that convened on 14-17 March in the Hague was very indicative in this regard.
But let me stress one simple fact. The questions that us and other countries have to the activities of the OPCW only need clear answers. To elaborate, accusing us of propaganda making and trying to besmirch the OPCW cannot be considered clear answers. As the saying goes, offence is the best defense, and that is exactly what we see. As soon as we try to draw attention to facts proving that the OPCW Technical Secretariat engages in improper activities, we hear right away that everything we say is a propaganda and disinformation campaign. I wonder if some of you have more solid arguments.
We regret that due to the policy of the OPCW Technical Secretariat that is supported by Western countries, the entire Organization appears compromised. At the same time, we are sure that there are many honest and professional specialists in the OPCW, and that they have the majority. Unfortunately, their collective reputation is associated with the deliberate policy of the leadership of the Technical Secretariat that literally undermines the Chemical Weapons Convention. What do we all want from the Technical Secretariat? Neither more nor less than faithful implementation of the provisions of the CWC, which the TS fails to follow.
Of course, this meeting did not pass without mentioning the Salisbury incident and the Navalny incident. It is very indicative that in both cases, the OPCW used the exactly same tactic as with the Syrian chemical file.
May I remind that Russia was the first to be interested in cooperating with the British side to clarify all the circumstances of what happened in Salisbury. But instead of conducting an objective investigation, London preferred to immediately make accusations against our country while basically recognizing the lack of any evidence. We all remember the infamous wording “highly likely”. By the way, the wording “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Technical Secretariat applies to the Douma incident, is but little different. Besides, the UK never gave any matter-of-fact answers to the numerous questions that Russia raised with regard to the incident.
Recently we circulated a substantial report “Salisbury: five years of unanswered questions” that was prepared by the Russian Embassy in the UK as an official document of the Security Council and General Assembly. It is an 80-pages longread and I realize that not all of you have time and capacity to study it thoroughly, though some of you simply are not willing to. We will prepare a summary and publish the questions that we asked to the British side. None of them was ever answered, though the questions are very markworthy. I reckon you would be very interested to read it. Same will be done regarding the Navalny incident.
I thank you for taking part in this Arria meeting which I believe was very useful. I assure you that we will give no peace to the Technical Secretariat or to you for that matter, until the incident in Douma receives a just and objective assessment.
Thank you.
