Mr President, we are disappointed that despite
Council members making clear, month after month, the
importance of resolving the outstanding issues in
Syria’s chemical weapons Declaration, the latest
monthly report from the OPCW Director-General sets
out again a lack of substantive progress by Syria.
The OPCW Technical Secretariat has been attempting to
reach agreement on deploying the DAT to Syria since
April this year. It received no response to its
requests to deploy from May to June and had to
postpone its visit until after the summer. Syria
eventually agreed to the deployment of the DAT this
month, but now we are told that Syria has refused a
visa for one of the DAT members, contrary to its
obligations under UNSCR 2118, yet again resulting in
the DAT being unable to deploy. Whilst we welcome the
OPCW’s efforts nevertheless to advance discussions on
Syria’s declaration by inviting Syria to The Hague,
we regret that the 25th round of consultations have
been unable to go ahead in full, in Syria.
Sadly, this lack of cooperation on the part of Syria
is not an exception. For example, the OPCW is still
waiting for answers regarding the Schedule 2 chemical
found at the Barzah facilities of the Scientific
Studies and Research Centre in November 2018. It is
still waiting for answers to questions regarding the
unauthorised movement and destruction of cylinders
relating to the high-profile 2018 Douma chlorine
attack. And the OPCW Executive Council and its
Conference of States Parties are still waiting for
compliance with the measures in the Executive
Council’s decision of 9 July 2020 imposed following
the IIT’s finding that chemical weapons were used by
the Syria in Ltamenah in 2017.
It is often alleged by Syria that we and other
countries are using the chemical weapons file to
punish them. But let me assure you, Mr President, the
UK would like nothing more than to receive a monthly
report from the Director-General confirming that all
declaration issues have been resolved and Syria’s
chemical weapons programme has been verifiably
destroyed.
We call on Syria to take this process seriously and
take expeditious steps towards meeting its
obligations in full under resolution 2118 and the
Chemical Weapons Convention.