No Progress on Issues Between OPCW, Syria Since Last UNSC Meeting - UN Official

UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th February, 2023) Efforts to clarify issues between the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Syria have not moved forward since last Security Council meeting on this issue, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu told the Security Council.

"Efforts by the OPCW Declaration Assessment Team (or DAT) to clarify all outstanding issues regarding the initial declaration and subsequent declarations of the Syrian Arab Republic have not progressed since the Council last met on this matter," Nakamitsu said on Tuesday.

The OPCW team has not received answers from Syria, she added.

The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, said that the meeting on Syria, including the briefings done by the OPCW Director General Fernando Arias, were empty.

He emphasized that if something should be discussed, then it is the "decline" of the organization.

Late January, the Investigation and Identification Team of OPCW concluded in its report that the Syrian Air Force carried out the deadly chemical weapons attack in the Syrian city of Duma in April 2018.

The Investigation and Identification Team was created at a special session of the OPCW in 2018 in response to calls by the United States and its allies to find those responsible for suspected chemical attacks on civilians in Syria, which they blamed on the government of President Bashar Assad.

Syria has denied the charges saying it has destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile under OPCW supervision.