{"id":109399,"date":"2018-04-16T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=109399"},"modified":"2018-04-15T17:12:38","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T16:12:38","slug":"at-security-council-un-chief-pushes-for-creation-of-body-to-determine-perpetrators-of-chemical-attacks-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/04\/at-security-council-un-chief-pushes-for-creation-of-body-to-determine-perpetrators-of-chemical-attacks-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"At Security Council, UN Chief Pushes for Creation of Body to Determine Perpetrators of Chemical Attacks in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>13 April 2018 – United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres today again called for the creation of an independent panel that could determine who used chemical weapons in Syria, as the absence of such a body increases the risks of a military escalation in a country already riven by \u201cconfrontations and proxy wars.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSyria indeed today represents the most serious threat<\/a> to international peace and security,\u201d the Secretary-General said in a briefing<\/a> to the Security Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Syria, we see confrontations and proxy wars involving several national armies, a number of armed opposition groups, many national and international militia, foreign fighters from everywhere in the world, and various terrorist organizations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

His plea comes after the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), which was created as a body to attribute responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2015, expired<\/a> in November 2017.<\/p>\n

Due largely to divisions among its five permanent members \u00ad\u2013 China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States \u2013 the Council could not adopt three draft resolutions that would have responded to a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres addresses Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security in relation to the situation in the Middle East, specifically Syria. UN Photo\/Manuel Elias<\/p><\/div>\n

Mr. Guterres, in a letter to the Council two days ago, expressed\u00a0his \u201cdeep disappointment\u201d at the failure of establishing an accountability mechanism similar to JIM.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, he also called the Ambassadors of the five permanent members to reiterate his \u201cdeep concern about the risks of the current impasse\u201d and stressed the need to \u201cavoid the situation spiralling out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s briefing to the Council, the UN chief warned that \u201cincreasing tensions and the inability to reach a compromise in the establishment of an accountability mechanism threaten to lead to a full-blown military escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor eight long years,\u201d he said, \u201cthe people of Syria have endured suffering upon suffering. I reiterate: there is no military solution to the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW<\/a>) \u2013 the body monitoring and facilitating implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force in 1997 \u2013 has dispatched a fact-finding mission<\/a> to Syria in response to latest allegations of chemical weapons use.<\/p>\n

But this body\u2019s work does not go beyond \u201cestablishing the facts,\u201d such as whether or not banned chemical substances were used.<\/p>\n

Sweden\u00a0circulates\u00a0new proposal to break impasse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sweden, a non-permanent Council member, on Thursday circulated a new proposal that asks for four things.<\/p>\n

It condemns \u201cin the strongest terms\u201d any use of chemical weapons in Syria and expresses alarm at the alleged incident in Douma last weekend; demands full access and cooperation for the OPCW fact-finding mission; expresses the Council\u2019s determination to establish a new impartial and independent attribution mechanism, based on a proposal by the Secretary-General; and requests the Secretary-General to dispatch immediately a high-level disarmament mission to Syria.<\/p>\n

Mr. Guterres, in today\u2019s meeting, also highlighted dangerous circumstances encompassing the wider Middle East region, which he said is facing \u201ca true Gordian knot \u2013 different fault lines crossing each other and creating a highly volatile situation with risks of escalation, fragmentation and division.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cold War is back with a vengeance, but with a difference,\u201d said the UN chief.<\/p>\n

The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present, Mr. Guterres said.<\/p>\n

Those \u201cfault lines\u201d also include the Palestinian-Israeli divide as well as the Sunni-Shia divide, evident from the Gulf to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany forms of escalation are possible,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013news.un.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 April 2018 – Ant\u00f3nio Guterres today again called for the creation of an independent panel that could determine who used chemical weapons in Syria, as the absence of such a body increases the risks of a military escalation in a country already riven by \u201cconfrontations and proxy wars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}