White House condemns Syria’s chemical weapons use

Russian officials tried to sound a conciliatory note over yesterday’s United Nations chemical weapons report, which noted two releases of “toxic substances” following Syrian helicopter attacks, and one ISIS deployment of mustard gas, with Ambassador Vitaly Churkin insisting that they and the USA have a mutual interest in discouraging such attacks.

French diplomatic sources said Paris wanted to use the chemical weapons report to push for a resolution at the Security Council that would force Russian Federation, the key backer to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to accept that its ally had used banned weapons and as a result would use its influence to back a credible ceasefire across the country.

Instead, Russia brokered an agreement, codified in Resolution 2118, to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons as part of a process overseen by the OPCW. That averted a USA military strike in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta the previous month. A separate OPCW investigation had already determined that chemical weapons had likely been used.

“We’ve got a test case just over the border in Iraq about what the consequences are for the United States implementing a regime-change policy and trying to impose a military solution on the situation”, Earnest said.

According to the report, obtained by The Associated Press, the JIM found the Syrian government responsible for two chlorine attacks in Idlib governorate, one in Talmenes on April 21, 2014 and one in Sarmin on March 16, 2015. “When it comes to proliferation, the use of chemical weapons, of such weapons of mass destruction, we can not afford to be weak”. Those measures usually mean sanctions, and Chapter 7 can be militarily enforced. “If they were to veto such a resolution they would need to justify the use of chemical weapons”, one senior diplomat said. “We continue to remove leaders from the battlefield with knowledge of these weapons and will target any related materials and attempts to manufacture such chemicals going forward”, Price said.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert who took soil samples in 2014 from villages in Idlib, said: “At last we have the unequivocal evidence of these chemical attacks and at last the United Nations have felt they can attribute blame to Assad and Isil”.

In the report, the JIM said that between December 2015 and August 2016 it received more than 130 new allegations from United Nations member states of the use of chemical weapons or toxic chemicals as weapons in Syria.

The 15-member Security Council is due to discuss the report next week.

The Assad regime has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons in Syria, but the report said that in the three cases, it had “sufficient information to reach a conclusion on the actors involved”.

Based on the findings, the Security Council could impo-se sanctions on Syria or ask the International Criminal Court to take it up as a war crime.