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UN / SYRIA
STORY: UN / SYRIA
TRT: 02:59
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / ARABIC / NATS
DATELINE: 02 SEPTEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
02 SEPTEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Wide shot, Security Council dais
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs
“The OPCW Technical Secretariat remains of the position that the Syrian Arab Republic must declare all chemical warfare agents produced and / or weaponised at the former chemical weapons production facility (CWPF) that was declared by the Syrian Arab Republic as never having been used to produce and / or weaponize chemical weapons.”
5. Wide shot, Council
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs
“Due to the identified gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies that remain unresolved, the OPCW Technical Secretariat continues to assess that, at this stage, the declaration submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic cannot be considered accurate and complete in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
7. Wide shot, Council dais
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Anna Estigneeva, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“We are particularly dismayed by the fact that, as was the case in the past, the report intentionally shifts the emphasis when it describes the airstrikes on 8 June on the declared chemical weapons facility in Syria. In the course of that strike, two cylinders were destroyed. The cylinders, which are related to the incident in Douma in April 2018. No assessment of the egregious fact of the airstrike itself, an airstrike on the territory of a sovereign state, are to be found on the report, nor is there any reaction to that by the Secretary-General or the Office of Disarmament Affairs.”
9. Med shot, Council President
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, United States:
“It is time for the Assad regime to uphold its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and Resolution 2118. This Council decided, in the event of non-compliance with Resolution 2118, to impose measures under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter. We now have overwhelming evidence of numerous incidences of non-compliance by the Assad regime. Now is the time to uphold and enforce this Council’s decision.”
11. Wide shot, Council
12. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Bassam, Sabbagh, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Syrian Arab Republic:
“Some Western states have unfortunately derailed these meetings and twisted them into a tool of defamation against Syria through politicizing technical issues. They turn them into a platform for questioning and misrepresenting our cooperation, as well as levelling false accusations and promoting lies against my country.”
13. Zoom out, Woodward walks away
High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu today (2 Sep) told the Security Council that Syria "must declare all chemical weapons agents produced and / or weaponized at the former chemical weapons production facility (CWPF). that was declared by the Syrian Arab Republic as never having been used to produce and / or weaponize chemical weapons.”
Nakamitsu said, “due to the identified gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies that remain unresolved, the OPCW Technical Secretariat continues to assess that, at this stage, the declaration submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic cannot be considered accurate and complete in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
Russian Ambassador Anna Estigneeva expressed dismayed at the report, as she said it “intentionally shifts the emphasis when it describes the airstrikes on 8 June on the declared chemical weapons facility in Syria.”
In the course of that strike, she said, two cylinders “which are related to the incident in Douma in April 2018” were destroyed.
Estigneeva said, “no assessment of the egregious fact of the airstrike itself, an airstrike on the territory of a sovereign state, are to be found on the report, nor is there any reaction to that by the Secretary-General or the Office of Disarmament Affairs.”
United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “it is time for the Assad regime to uphold its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and Resolution 2118. This Council decided, in the event of non-compliance with Resolution 2118, to impose measures under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter. We now have overwhelming evidence of numerous incidences of non-compliance by the Assad regime. Now is the time to uphold and enforce this Council’s decision.”
For his part Syrian Ambassador Bassam, Sabbagh said, “some Western states have unfortunately derailed these meetings and twisted them into a tool of defamation against Syria through politicizing technical issues. They turn them into a platform for questioning and misrepresenting our cooperation, as well as levelling false accusations and promoting lies against my country.”
Resolution 2118 calls for Syria to cooperate with UN partner, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and allow access to its territory.
In July, Syria wrote to the OPCW to report an attack on 8 June against a military installation that housed a declared former chemical weapons production facility. Following a request for further information, Syria further reported that two chlorine cylinders related to an April 2018 chemical weapons incident in the city Douma had been destroyed.
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