The executive body of the global chemical arms watchdog on Friday took the unprecedented step of condemning Syria and Islamic State (IS) militants for using toxic weapons, demanding increased inspections.
The leading body of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) also voiced concern about “gaps and discrepancies” in Syria’s 2013 declaration about the size of its toxic arms stockpile.
The resolution, adopted by a rare majority vote, “condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic,” the organization said in a statement.
It pointed to findings by a recent joint UN and OPCW investigation which concluded that “the Syrian Arab Armed Forces and the so-called Islamic State ... have been involved in the use of chemical weapons.”
Sources, who attended the closed door talks, had reporters it was the first time the watchdog had found a state member to have violated the Chemical Weapons Convention.
However, this was not spelled out in the resolution, which nevertheless urged Syria “to comply fully with its obligations,” the organization statement said.
The joint UN-OPCW panel’s report released last month concluded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had carried out three attacks on villages in 2014 and last year.
Syrian government helicopters from two regime-controlled air bases dropped chlorine barrel-bombs on the villages of Qmenas, Talmenes and Sarmin, in rebel-held Idlib Governorate, Syria.
IS militants used mustard gas in August last year in Syria, the panel determined.
The executive council said those using such weapons must “desist immediately and authorizes additional inspections at selected sites... of concern in Syria.”
Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the organization usually works by consensus, but after weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations on the text it became impossible to reach unanimity, mainly due to Russian objections, one source who attended the session said.
When it was clear that “an overwhelming majority” supported the four-page resolution put forward by Spain it was decided to put it to a vote, the source said.
A total of 28 countries including Britain, France and the US voted in favor, gathering the two-thirds needed to pass, separate sources said.
Four countries voted against — China, Iran, Russia and Sudan — while nine countries abstained.
“There is a clear determination across the international community to hold those who have used these heinous weapons to account,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement.
The OPCW body ordered inspections twice a year at the Barzah and Jamrayah research centers in Syria, warning Damascus must “facilitate promptly, and fully cooperate with, these inspections.”
Syria officially joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in October 2013, vowing to hand over its stockpile of toxic arms for destruction and undertaking never to use chemical weapons.
After years of denying it possessed chemical weapons, Syria was pushed into the convention under a deal brokered by the US and Russia, averting a threatened US airstrike following an August 2013 gas attack.
All its declared stock of chemical weapons have now been destroyed, but attacks have continued.
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