PRESS RELEASE : Assad has been actively rebuilding chemical weapons in Syria [February 2023]
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 7 February 2023.
Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the Security Council meeting on Syria.
On behalf of the UK, I give my condolences to those people affected by the earthquake in Turkiye and Syria. Our thoughts are with those families still searching for answers and loved ones from the rubble and those in mourning in the aftermath of the earthquake and its aftershocks and with those helping them in any way. The UK is contributing immediate support and stands ready further to support humanitarian efforts.
Madame President, I start by thanking High Representative Nakamitsu, Director-General Arias and IIT Coordinator Oñate for their briefings.
We welcome the publication of the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team’s latest report which has decisively found the Assad regime responsible for the 2018 chemical weapons attack on Douma, which killed 43 men, women and children and injured dozens more, in horrifying circumstances.
Yet again, we are faced with undeniable evidence that the Syrian state has used chemical weapons to murder its own citizens.
This is the ninth such finding of Syrian regime responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in investigations by the UN and OPCW. We welcome this report, and once again commend the expertise, independence, dedication and professionalism of the OPCW’s staff.
We owe it to the victims of Douma and the thousands of other victims of chemical weapons attacks across Syria to hold the Syrian regime to account.
Moreover, President, today we are gravely concerned that the Assad regime has been working actively to rebuild its chemical weapons stockpile since at least 2018 – in flagrant violation of its obligations and the commitments 193 states parties have made under the Chemical Weapons Convention in pursuit of a world free from chemical weapons.
This is why it remains vital that we support the OPCW in efforts to resolve inconsistencies and discrepancies with Syria’s Chemical Weapons declaration. The Syrian regime must now change its behaviour on chemical weapons, and must provide this Council with concrete assurance that it has destroyed all stockpiles and no longer possesses the capability or intent to use chemical weapons anywhere, under any circumstances.
Despite the latest overwhelming evidence of Syria’s chemical weapons use, we have heard again today Russia’s usual barrage of lies, denials, disinformation and unfounded criticism of the OPCW. But the OPCW’s painstaking report, which considers the ‘alternative scenarios’ put forward by Russia, specifically, comprehensively and credibly rejects them on the basis of evidence.
If the Assad regime, and its protector Russia, prevent progress, block accountability and deny justice for the victims, they also risk further erosion of the global norm against the these abhorrent weapons. All of us here today have a responsibility to support the OPCW, to uphold the Chemical Weapons Convention, insist on compliance with the resolutions of this Council, and continue to seek accountability for the victims of these heinous attacks.
Thank you.
