| New York Times | - |
Thrust back into a central role in resolving the Syrian
conflict, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council met on Tuesday to negotiate a draft resolution that would hold Syria to its pledge of identifying all chemical weapons ...
Security Council Returns to Role in Syria Conflict
Muzaffar Salman/Reuters
Free Syrian Army fighters stand guard in Aleppo on Tuesday.
By RICK GLADSTONE
Published: September 17, 2013
Thrust back into a central role in resolving the Syrian conflict, the
five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council met on
Tuesday to negotiate a draft resolution that would hold Syria to its
pledge of identifying all chemical weapons under government control for
destruction, but diplomats said major differences over a draft quickly
emerged.
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The Lede: Russia’s Foreign Minister Cites Questions Raised by Nun in Syria on Chemical Attacks (September 17, 2013)
Times Topic: Crisis in Syria
Mike Segar/Reuters
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon,
expressed hope on Tuesday for an enforceable resolution.
The diplomats, who declined to be identified, said Russia, Syria’s most
important ally, was resisting components of the draft, composed by the
three Western permanent members — Britain, France and the United States —
that discuss the threat of force to ensure Syrian compliance, whether
to condemn the Syrian government for chemical weapons use and whether
suspected users should be referred to the International Criminal Court
for war crimes prosecutions.
The discussions are unlikely to produce a quick resolution, the
diplomats said, and it is unclear when a draft will be ready for a vote.
Renewed momentum for Security Council action got a boost from a framework agreement reached on Saturday
between the United States and Russia under which the council would
review Syria’s compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, which
the country officially agreed to join that same day.
Under the framework agreement, the Syrians are expected to submit by
Saturday a “comprehensive listing” of all their chemical weapons
supplies and facilities as a first step, with the goal of identifying
and destroying the munitions by the middle of 2014. The agreement also
specified that the Security Council should review Syrian compliance with
the rules of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
The Hague-based group that administers the treaty.
Representatives of the council’s permanent members met a day after a
United Nations panel of weapons inspectors confirmed that a devastating
chemical weapons attack had been carried out near Damascus, the Syrian
capital, on Aug. 21. Their report, the first independent on-the-ground
inquest into that attack, did not ascribe blame. But nonproliferation
experts said the litany of specific evidence presented appeared to
implicate the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian government has said insurgents carried out the attack, in
which hundreds of civilians were killed by exposure to sarin, a chemical
nerve agent. Russia has supported the Syrian government’s assertion,
arguing that it is illogical that Syrian forces could have been
responsible.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who called the report a chilling document
that described a war crime, declined at a United Nations news
conference on Tuesday to ascribe responsibility for that attack, a
position he has consistently held.
But Mr. Ban expressed hope that the Russia-United States agreement
reached Saturday, negotiated by Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of
Russia and Secretary of State John Kerry, had set in motion a diplomatic
process that would overcome the divisions that have deadlocked the
Security Council over Syria since the conflict there began 30 months
ago.
“What is encouraging is that the two foreign ministers agreed on a
framework agreement, how to deal with all these chemical weapons,” Mr.
Ban said. “I hope that spirit of very friendly negotiations, on the
basis of good rapport, will help forge a unity among the Security
Council.”
He also expressed hope that any Security Council resolution on Syria “can really be an enforceable one.”
The Russia-United States agreement specifies that if Syria fails to
comply with its obligations under the chemical weapons treaty, the
Security Council should impose measures under Chapter 7 of the United
Nations Charter, which allows for coercive steps, including the use of
military force.
But differing interpretations of that passage have emerged among the
permanent members of the Security Council over the past few days.
Diplomats said Russia wanted Chapter 7 mentioned as one of the options
available to the council at a future date — opening the possibility that
a further resolution would be needed if Syrian noncompliance became an
issue. Britain, France and the United States, on the other hand, want
the resolution language to convey the threat of Chapter 7 action
immediately, in keeping with their publicly stated position that Syria
cannot delay or dodge its obligations.
France and the United States have also said they reserve the right to
punish Syria militarily, a position criticized by Russia as illegal
under the United Nations Charter.
The United States ambassador, Samantha Power, on Tuesday invoked the
details provided in the chemical weapons report to press the argument
that accountability and enforceability must be part of any Security
Council resolution on Syria growing out of the Aug. 21 attack, the
deadliest use of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein’s forces gassed
the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988.
“For a crime of this magnitude, it is not enough to say ‘chemical
weapons were used,’ any more than it would have been enough to say that
‘machetes were used’ in Rwanda in 1994,” she said in remarks to a
General Assembly session on the chemical weapons report. “We must
condemn the user, and here we must acknowledge what the technical
details of the U.N. report make clear: only the regime could have
carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack, the largest attack
in 25 years.”
The differing views were reflected earlier Tuesday in a Moscow meeting
between Mr. Lavrov and France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. Mr.
Lavrov was quoted as saying the agreement with the United States had
made clear that if Syria is noncompliant, “then the Security Council
will examine the situation.”
Mr. Lavrov also disputed the conclusions drawn by his Western colleagues
from the chemical weapons report. While Mr. Fabius said at a news
conference that the report “exposes the regime,” Mr. Lavrov said his
government had “serious reason to suggest that this was a provocation”
carried out by insurgents seeking Mr. Assad’s demise.
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