UN worried about “potentially undeclared” chemical-warfare activities in Syria

Director and Deputy to the High Representative of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) Adedeji Ebo warned of an extremely worrying development of chemical weapons program in Syria. Addressing the UN Security Council on Thursday, Ebo recalled that the Declaration Assessment Team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), following its 27th round of consultations with the Syrian Government, requested explanations regarding the results of an analysis of several samples it collected between September 2020 and April 2023 at two formerly declared chemical-weapon sites. "Such results indicated potentially undeclared activities related to several chemical-warfare agents," he claimed. He went on to say that Syria provided additional information, but the OPCW assessed it as insufficient. The UN official affirmed that this resulted in the opening of two new outstanding issues in July 2024, raising the total number of such issues from 24 to 26 - 19 of which remain unresolved. "This is an extremely worrying development," he said, also noting that the Syrian Government did not accept OPCW's proposals for two possible time periods in which to hold a twenty-eighth round of consultations. As a result, the OPCW informed Syria on 14 August of its intention to deploy a reduced Team to conduct such consultations in mid-September 2024. The Team's planned activities were also updated accordingly, as it will not be in a position to conduct any field visits during the proposed deployment. Further, while Syria informed OPCW on 19 August that it had no objection to receiving the Team in mid-September, he noted that "negotiations for the relevant dates are still ongoing". "The delayed deployment of the Declaration Assessment Team will have an operational impact" on planned inspections of two facilities of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, he said. While OPCW remains "fully committed" to implementing its mandate - verifying the fulfilment of Syria's declaration obligations under th e Chemical Weapons Convention - he stressed that Syria's "full cooperation" is "essential" to close all outstanding issues. Considering the identified issues that remain unresolved, he stated that OPCW assesses that Syria's declaration "still cannot be considered accurate and complete". He, therefore, called on Syria to cooperate with OPCW and respond - with urgency - to all its requests. Meanwhile, the UN will continue to support all efforts to uphold the norm against the use of chemical weapons and "to relegate these dreadful weapons to history", he added. He urged the Council members to unite on this issue and "show leadership in demonstrating that impunity in the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated". Source: Kuwait News Agency