UK proposal causes controversy at OPCW’s special meeting

The UK has presented a controversial proposal for expanding the powers of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at a meeting of the UN’s chemical watchdog, sparking opposition from Russia and Syria.

During the special meeting of the OPCW called by the UK in The Hague on Tuesday, Britain, supported by the US and its allies, pointed to the absence of any mechanism to identify the perpetrators of the chemical attacks the watchdog investigates.

The UK’s draft resolution said that the OPCW should be mandated to “attribute responsibility for chemical weapons attacks.”

The UK proposal led to tense debates during the 12-hour meeting of the OPCW, with delegates now expected to vote on London’s proposal behind closed doors on Wednesday. It requires a two-thirds majority, minus any abstentions, to be approved.

The meeting came as the OPCW is expected to release its report on an alleged sarin and chlorine gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, which reportedly killed 40 people.

Western states blamed the Syrian government for the suspected chemical weapons attack, but Syria has rejected the accusations. Damascus surrendered its chemical stockpile in 2013 to a mission led by the OPCW and the UN.

Syria and Russia described the Douma attack as a “fake” scenario staged by the so-called White Helmets, a self-proclaimed Syrian opposition civil defense group in the UK.

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“We all hoped that these terrible instruments of death would never be used again,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said at the meeting. “But the tragic reality is that chemical weapons have been used and are being used all over again.”

The US, France and Germany have also voiced support for the UK’s initiative.

However, Russia and Syria, which have vehemently rejected the use of chemical weapons by the Damascus government in recent months, opposed Britain’s proposal, saying there should be no change to the OPCW mandate.

Russia’s deputy minister for industry and trade Georgy Kalamanov slammed Britain’s proposal for changing the OPCW’s mandate as a “destructive idea” which would undermine the UN body’s legal basis.

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The Russian diplomat also slammed the attempts by the UK to turn the OPCW from a body focused on “providing technical assistance to member states in executing the requirements of the CWC” into a “quasi-prosecutorial, policing and forensic-medical structure.”

The draft decision was “a clear attempt here to manipulate the mandate of the OPCW,” Kalamanov said.

“The only international body or international court who can decide who would be guilty when we are dealing with members of the United Nations is the Security Council,” he added.

Syrian permanent representative to the OPCW, Bassam Sabbagh lashed out at the US over its “malicious policies” aimed at bringing about regime change in Syria.

After the US policy of regime change in Syria failed, Washington turned to proxies “to fund them, train them and provide them with chemical weapons in order to inflame international public opinion against the Syrian government,” Sabbagh said.

During the meeting on Tuesday, the outgoing head of the OPCW, Ahmet Uzumcu, also expressed the UN body’s preparedness to carry out a new mission, noting, “If accountability is avoided the potential re-emergence and acceptance of chemicals as weapons of war and terror will not be deterred.”

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