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8225th Security Council Meeting: Situation in Middle East
In an emergency meeting following claims of chemical weapons attacks against civilians in Douma, Syria, both Security Council members and officials briefing them voiced grave concern that the use of such weapons risked being normalized — and could contribute to rapidly escalating tensions between world Powers — for the first time since the end of the cold war.
Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, outlined events over the last 48 hours, including reports of civilians in the eastern Ghouta town of Douma suffering symptoms consistent with chemical weapons exposure. Over the weekend, photos had begun to circulate on social media showing lifeless men, women and children, while non-governmental organizations claimed to have received cases of civilians experiencing the effects of chemical weapons. While the United Nations was not in a position to verify those reports, he said, “it cannot ignore them”.
He said several States had suggested that Syria’s Government was responsible, while others — including the Government of Syria itself — had called those claims a fabrication. Noting that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had begun an initial investigation, he voiced concern, for the first time in his tenure, over not just the security of Syria or the region, but the world. “The Council cannot allow a situation of uncontrollable escalation to develop in Syria, on any front,” he stressed.
Thomas Markram, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, cited reports that at least 49 people had been killed and hundreds injured in the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma. Noting that the OPCW Fact-Finding mission was already gathering information, he emphasized that what was being seen in Syria could not go unchallenged by anyone who valued the decades of efforts to bring about disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Urging the Council to unite to those ends, he stressed: “To do otherwise, or to simply do nothing, is to accept, tacitly or otherwise, that such a challenge is insurmountable.”
Taking the floor, Council members differed sharply on their versions of the Douma incident, with some recounting gruesome descriptions of civilians hiding —and perishing — in their basements as chemical weapons fell from above. Others described the event as “fake news” aimed at falsely incriminating the Syrian Government and its allies. Still others, recalling that claims of chemical weapons use against Russian nationals had been reported in the United Kingdom town of Salisbury just weeks ago, expressed concern that the world was seeing a re‑emergence of such weapons as part of a dangerous new “status quo”.
France’s representative said thousands of videos and photos emerging from Douma in recent days showed victims foaming at the mouth and convulsing, all symptoms of a potent nerve agent combined with chlorine. There was no doubt as to the perpetrators, as the Syrian Government and is allies alone had the capability of developing such substances. The children killed were not “collateral damage”, but, instead, the very targets of State terrorism constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity. “The Assad regime, yet again, is testing the international community’s commitment” to respond robustly to the use of chemical weapons, he said, stressing that words must be followed by action, or risk being hollowed of all meaning.
The representative of the United Kingdom said the five permanent Council members had a particular responsibility to uphold the global prohibition on weapons of mass destruction. One of them, however, did not share that belief. The situation today was not like that during the cold war, when there was no flagrant disregard of that universal prohibition. Syria’s Government and its backers, Iran and the Russian Federation, were prolonging the fighting and risking regional and global instability. While the United Kingdom believed the Syrian regime was responsible for the latest attack, there must be an independent fact-finding mission to determine if chemical weapons had been used, and if so, which ones. It must be followed by an independent investigation to determine who was responsible.
The representative of the United States, recalling that, almost exactly one year ago, she had shown the Council photographs of Syrian children who had been gassed to death in Khan Shaykhun. There was no point in continuing attempts to shame those responsible — the Syrian regime and the Russian Federation. Indeed, Moscow had cast 11 vetoes in defence of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and had killed the Joint Investigative Mechanism, which had found Syria’s Government responsible for last year’s attack. “There can be no more rationalization about our failure to act,” she stressed, adding that the United States President was weighing important national decisions related to the crisis.
Rejecting those claims, the Russian Federation’s delegate said Washington, D.C., and those blindly following it — namely London and Paris — were deliberately stoking international tensions and engaging in a confrontational policy against the Russian Federation and Syria without any justification. The United States and its partners did not understand the potential consequences of their reckless geopolitical experiment in the Middle East, he said, emphasizing that Western capitals were taking up rumours spread by non-governmental organizations, the white helmets and the media. The use of sarin or chlorine gas in Douma had not been confirmed, he stressed, calling for a prompt investigation and for Western politicians to scale down their rhetoric.
Syria’s representative agreed that the lies of some permanent Council members had fuelled conflicts, including in Viet Nam, the Korean Peninsula and Iraq. Now they sought to defeat Syria. Emphasizing that the United States, United Kingdom and France were eager to hold Council meetings on the basis of fabricated information, he recalled that the Syrian Government had warned the Council, OPCW and the Joint Investigative Mechanism on many occasions about terrorist groups possessing chlorine and sarin. The White Helmets would fabricate evidence and Hollywood-like scenes intended to stir incitement against Syria and its allies. The Syrian military had no chemical weapons, having destroyed them under United States auspices, he stressed.
Also speaking were representatives of the Netherlands, China, Sweden, Poland, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Bolivia and Peru.
The meeting began at 3:02 p.m. and ended at 5:45 p.m.