The chemical weapons hoax against Syria continues at full speed ahead. The UN Security Council met again yesterday to review the Syrian chemical weapons portfolio. Fernando Arias, the chief of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), who has been accused of crushing dissent within the agency regarding Syria, told the council that its experts have investigated 77 allegations against Syria, and concluded that in 17 cases chemical weapons were likely or definitely used. Arias called it “a disturbing reality” that eight years after Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), many questions remain about its initial declaration of its weapons, stockpiles and precursors and its ongoing program.
Arias that the OPCW will be taking up a new issue at its next consultations with Syria — “the presence of a new chemical weapons agent found in samples collected in large storage containers in September 2020.” Arias complained, however, that the Syrian government has refused to grant visas for the OPCW team that was supposed to investigate this latest claim.
Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that the OPCW should not have been surprised at the lack of cooperation from Damascus, given that the organization voted up a French measure in April to suspend Syria’s rights and privileges under the CWC. “It is not surprising that Syria never recognized the legitimacy of the group, neither did we,” Nebenzia said. “The group was established illegitimately. You cannot expect that Syria will be cooperating with it.”
Nebenzia otherwise kept up the Russian attack on the politicization of the OPCW. He accused it of using information “from biased sources opposed to the Syrian government,” of collecting evidence remotely and relying on “pseudo-witnesses.” He said the purpose of the council meeting was not to “interrogate” Arias by asking “uncomfortable” questions, as some council members said, but “to work collectively to improve the deplorable situation that has evolved in the OPCW.”
