MOSCOW/ NEW YORK: Russia opposes a draft UN resolution to extend the mandate of an international inquiry into chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
Ryabkov’s comments came hours after Russia rejected a report by the international inquiry blaming the Syrian regime for a deadly toxic gas attack, casting doubt on the UN Security Council’s ability to extend the investigation’s mandate before it expires next week.
The debate in the Security Council during a meeting on the report reflected the sharp differences between Russia, Syria’s most important ally, and Western countries that have backed Assad’s opponents.
Russia and the US have circulated rival resolutions to extend the experts’ body, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM. Its mandate expires Nov. 14.
The investigation found that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was to blame for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people in April, according to a report sent to the Security Council on Oct. 26.
Russia, whose air force and special forces have bolstered the Syrian regime’s army, has said there is no evidence to show Damascus was responsible for the attack. Moscow maintains that the chemicals that killed civilians belonged to the opposition, not the regime.
Russia last month cast a veto at the UN Security Council against renewing the investigation’s mandate.
“I stress that we are in no way raising the question of ending this structure’s activities,” RIA state news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. “We are in favor of its maintenance, but on a different basis.”
The draft UN resolution by the US says Syria must not develop or produce chemical weapons, and it calls on all parties in Syria to provide full cooperation with the international probe.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that a revised US draft circulated on Tuesday included some points from the Russian draft, including the importance of high standards and sound evidence.
But she said Russia continues “to push unacceptable language only meant to undermine the investigators and divide this council.”
Assistant Secretary-General Edmond Mulet, who heads the JIM, told the council how experts reached their conclusions, including finding that the chemistry of the sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun was very likely to have been made from the same precursor, called DF, as the sarin in Syria’s original stockpile.
In September 2013, Syria accepted a Russian proposal to relinquish its chemical weapons stockpile and join the Chemical Weapons Convention. That averted a US military strike in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
Mulet said the Security Council has “a unique responsibility” to deter all those using chemical weapons and “end the use of such weapons forever.”
"I understand the political issues surrounding the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said. “However, this is not a political issue about the lives of innocent civilians. Impunity must not prevail.”
Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov was sharply critical of the JIM and the report, especially the experts’ failure to visit Khan Sheikhoun, which Mulet said was for security reasons.
Safronkov derided the JIM for not pinpointing specific responsibility, asking: Is “an entire state responsible?” He also complained that “while some continue to try to find this mythical or invented chemical weapons in Damascus, the region is seeing an increasing threat of chemical terrorism” that is not being addressed.
Deputy British Ambassador Jonathan Allen said Russia has advanced multiple theories about the Khan Sheikhoun attack, and when one gets debunked Moscow goes with something else.
“It’s one of the great tragedies that Russia is a country with hugely respected and impressive scientists, but also a country of great fiction writers,” he told several reporters. “And unfortunately, the scientists of Russia are being ignored and the fiction writers are being indulged.”
Allen called Russia’s draft resolution to renew the JIM mandate “a cynical ploy to discredit a professional, independent and impartial body.”
“Russia is trying to shoot the messenger to cover up for the crimes of the Syrian regime,” he said.
Russia and West clash over where blame lies for Syrian chemical weapons usage
Russia and West clash over where blame lies for Syrian chemical weapons usage
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
