Seven European countries demand the Security Council to identify those responsible for the Syrian chemical

Yesterday, seven European countries called on the UN Security Council to set arrangements for identifying those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, stressing that they “will not tolerate” any party involved in it.

“We reiterate our full support for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We have full confidence in the organization’s technical secretariat, its professionalism, impartiality and its solid technical expertise,” Germany’s representative to the United Nations, Christoph Huysgen, told reporters at the United Nations headquarters in New York before the start of an open session of the Security Council on the Syria chemical program.

“We will also remain firm in defending the organization, against deliberate attacks that have no basis on its integrity and credibility,” he added, calling for “arrangements to be made to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.”

He stressed that “the use of chemical weapons by any person, be it a state or a non-governmental actor, anywhere, at any time and under any circumstance, is a violation of international law, and may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

He also strongly condemned the use of chemical materials by the Assad regime’s air force, as concluded by the first report of the investigation team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, ”and called for“ the necessity of establishing arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of these weapons.

The seven countries included current and expatriate members of the Security Council, which are Britain, Germany, Belgium, Estonia, France, Ireland and Norway.

In turn, the Russian permanent representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebezia, questioned the veracity of the reports of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and considered that the organization’s reports are “impartial and rely on misleading information and suspicious leaks” aimed at condemning Bashar al-Assad’s regime, he said.

It is noteworthy that the Chemical Weapons Organization had accused, last April, the Air Force of the Assad regime, of carrying out prohibited chemical attacks on the town of Al-Lataminah, in Hama Governorate, western Syria, in March 2017.