Western countries demanded that Damascus allow the inspectors of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to enter its territories, while Washington accused Russia of “obstructing efforts to hold the Syrian regime accountable” and providing “misleading information” about chemical weapons.
Syria is under new pressure from the OPCW after it refused to grant a visa to a member of an inspection team that was set to be deployed to Damascus later this month.
During a meeting of the Executive Council of the OPCW Member States in The Hague, British Ambassador Joanna Roper stressed “the need for Syria to issue visas without hindrance or delay.”
Roper also called on Syria to “explain” the fate of two chlorine cylinders identified as evidence in a reported Syrian regime chemical weapons attack on the opposition-held town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta in 2018.
Damascus recently told the OPCW that the two cylinders had been destroyed in an unspecified attack on one of its own chemical weapons facilities in June this year.
More than 40 people were killed in the attack on Douma, which led Western countries to launch missile strikes against three suspected chemical weapons facilities belonging to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
OPCW Director General Fernando Arias on Monday said the watchdog “noted with concern” the delays in discussions with Damascus.
He added that the regulator would not send the inspection team to Syria unless it got visas for all members.
Arias noted that Syria’s declaration on its remaining chemical weapons “cannot be considered accurate and complete” due to what he called “gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies that remain unresolved.”
Meanwhile, Britain, the United States and other allies demanded that Russia provide clarifications on the circumstances of the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny last year with the nerve agent Novichok, according to Western experts. Moscow denies involvement in the poisoning of the Kremlin’s most prominent opponents last year.
“The Russian Federation should explain the use of a chemical weapon against Mr. Navalny on its soil, declare its remaining chemical weapons... including Novichok agents," US Ambassador Joseph Manso said in a statement.
In New York, Ambassador Richard Mills, the deputy US representative to the United Nations, said during a council session on Monday: “Despite the Assad regime’s denials, it is clear that the regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons. The OPCW’s investigation and identification team has now attributed four separate chemical weapons attacks in Syria to the Assad regime.”
The US representative accused allies of the Assad regime, including Russia, of actively seeking to obstruct all efforts to promote accountability.
He stressed that Russia continued to defend the Assad regime’s failures to comply with its obligations, by spreading disinformation and attacking the integrity and professional work of the OPCW.
