Chemistry between Moscow and Damascus

Russia seeks to hide data on the use of chemical weapons by the troops of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. This was stated at a meeting of the UN Security Council, a regular representative of the United States Nikki Haley, the UN news center reports .

Last and this week it became known about the new Himataki in the Eastern Guta. “This attack with the use of chlorin was committed precisely in the place that Assad’s regime tries to capture by military means,” the US Permanent Representative emphasized.

“We know that for many years, Russia, in those cases when its Syrian friends used these despicable warfare guns, looked in the other direction. Russia is involved in the atrocities of the Assad regime. Will the Russian Federation say at least anything caused by the barbaric actions of Assad? They will require an answer? Of course, they will never do it,” Haley said.

The France Permanent Representative of the Security Council informed that on Tuesday in Paris 24 countries agreed on a joint initiative of intention to continue the fight against impunity for the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebena, in turn, proposed to create a new investigative body to establish facts related to the use of poisonous substances in Syria and submitted a draft resolution on this issue. According to Nebenzi, the new body "must be professional and depolitized." It should replace the joint mechanism of the organization to prohibit chemical weapons (OPCO) and the UN to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which, according to the Russian diplomat, "became an instrument of political manipulations" and "completely discredited himself."

Haley criticized the Russian initiative. "Russia gathered us all almost without a preliminary notice, and then made a proposal that, as it hopes, will distract attention from the new French initiative to ensure the responsibility of those who use chemical weapons," said the US Permanent Representative. According to her, Russia has no right to teach the Security Council how to achieve the termination of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Haley recalled that last year Moscow ran three times to Veto, who "killed" a joint investigation mechanism.

The validity of the SMR mandate has expired on November 18. A month before, the issue of extending the work of the mission was raised at the UN three times, but all three times Russia imposed a veto on the document.

On October 24, Moscow blocked the adoption of the resolution proposed by the United States.

On November 16, Russia imposed a veto on the second project also made by Washington. At the same time, 11 out of 15 members of the UN Security Council supported the document. At the same time, the alternative project of the resolution proposed by Moscow did not give nine votes - a minimum necessary for approval. Only China, Bolivia and Kazakhstan supported the Russian document, while the seven countries of the Council of People's Commissars opposed, and four more countries abstained.

On November 18, on the end of the SMR mandate, the third project made by Japan was considered. This document provided only for the technical extension of the mandate for only a month, for which it was supposed to develop more clear work parameters of experts. Moscow blocked this initiative . Nebenzya called the SMR structure, which "for two years in a row stamping unproven accusations against Syria." "Any extension of the SMR mandate is possible for us only if the fundamental shortcomings are corrected in his work. It cannot be otherwise - after the management of the mechanism that covered itself with a shame with its fictitious investigation of the episode using Zarin in Khan Sheikhuna put signatures under the unfounded accusations against Syria," the official said.

Meanwhile, Haley pointed out that the text of the new resolution was “practically identical” by the text of the previously rejected Russian project, and the amendments included in it coincided with those that Moscow itself proposed when discussing one of the American options. This means that Russia was actually not going to renew the mandate of experts, concluded Haley.