Note: A complete summary of today’s Security Council meeting will be made available after its conclusion.
Briefings
ADEDEJI EBO, Deputy to the High Representative of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, said that since the last round of consultations between the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Declaration Assessment Team and the Syrian National Authority in February 2021, all efforts to organize the next round of consultations have been unsuccessful. Although Syria agreed to the OPCW Technical Secretariat’s May 2022 proposal to address the declaration-related issues through exchange of correspondence, the Technical Secretariat has yet to receive any documents requested. This includes the complete declaration of activities at the Scientific Studies and Research Center and the declaration of quantities of nerve agents produced at one chemical-weapons-production facility that was declared by that country as never having been used to produce chemical weapons.
Due to this situation, the Technical Secretariat has deployed a reduced team comprising several members of the Declaration Assessment Team to Syria to conduct limited in-country activities, he said. In March, Syria proposed a meeting with the Secretariat in Damascus or Beirut to develop a new work plan to resolve all issues related to the Syrian chemical weapons dossier. Consequently, a delegation from the Technical Secretariat met with the country’s representatives in Beirut on 22 and 23 June. The following points, inter alia, were addressed during the meeting: a six-month extension to the Tripartite Agreement among OPCW, Syria and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) was agreed, extending its duration up to and including 31 December; the country committed to present proposals for better implementing its obligations; and the OPCW Technical Secretariat and Syria discussed the conduct of the twenty-fifth round of consultations as the optimum means of achieving outcomes related to the Syrian chemical weapons dossier.
However, he emphasized, full cooperation by Syria with the Technical Secretariat is essential to closing all outstanding issues. Considering the unresolved gaps, the Technical Secretariat assesses that the declaration submitted by Syria still cannot be considered accurate and complete in accordance with the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction. The country has yet to provide sufficient technical information that would enable the Technical Secretariat to close the issue related to the detection of a Schedule 2 chemical at the Barzah facilities at the Scientific Studies and Research Center in November 2018. In addition, during the ninth round of inspections at the Barzah facility in September 2022, the inspection team observed numerous boxes containing a chemical of a dual-use nature, stored in large quantities at the facility’s chemical storage warehouse. Following the inspection, the Technical Secretariat requested information that would allow it to assess that all activities conducted therein are for purposes not prohibited under the Convention; it is still awaiting that information.
Regarding the unauthorized movement of the two cylinders related to the chemical weapon incident that took place in Douma on 7 April 2018, which were allegedly destroyed in an attack on a chemical weapons production facility, the Technical Secretariat is still awaiting information related to the unauthorized movement of these cylinders, he continued. On 28 June, the Technical Secretariat issued a report of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission regarding incidents of alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon in Kharbit Massasneh on 7 July and 4 August 2017. The report concluded that the information obtained did not provide reasonable grounds for the Fact Finding Mission to determine that toxic chemicals were used as a weapon in the reported incidents. He urged the members of the Council to unite on this issue and show leadership in demonstrating that “impunity in the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated”.
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