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STORY: UN / SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS
TRT: 03:27
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11 JUNE 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
11 JUNE 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Various shots, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs:
“As a result of the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth round of consultations, the OPCW Technical Secretariat assessed that sufficient information had been gathered to consider three outstanding issues as resolved. I am encouraged to see the positive impacts of this renewed cooperation, which began with the resumption of consultations between the DAT and the Syrian National Authority in October 2023 after a gap of more than two and a half years. However, further cooperation is needed to resolve the remaining outstanding issues.”
4. Wide shot, Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs:
“The substance of these outstanding issues concerns and involves, inter alia, undeclared research, production and / or weaponization of unknown quantities of chemical weapons and significant quantities of chemical warfare agents and / or precursors and chemical munitions whose fate has not yet been fully verified by the OPCW Technical Secretariat.”
6. Wide shot, Council
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs:
“Serious concerns remain regarding the presence of unexpected chemicals in the samples collected by the DAT between 2020 and 2023 at several declared sites. I urge all parties involved to not only maintain, but to enhance cooperation going forward, so that all outstanding issues regarding the initial and subsequent declarations submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic can be resolved.”
8. Wide shot, United States Ambassador Robert Woods addressing Council
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Wood, Alternate Representative to the United Nations, United States:
“The United States has long been concerned the Syrian regime retains residual chemical weapons capability. And indeed, the OPCW continues to uncover new alarming evidence. Last month, the Director General reminded OPCW state parties of the presence of unexpected chemicals in samples collected by the declaration assessment team between 2021 and 2023 across several declared sites. Such results clearly demonstrated the Assad regime has neither declared nor accounted for the full history and scope of its chemical weapons program.”
10. Wide shot, Syrian Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak addressing Council
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Koussay Aldahhak, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Syrian Arab Republic:
“Syria reiterates its request to the technical Secretariat of the OPCW and Western countries who continue to politicize this file and to use it for their hostile ends, to not prejudice the consultations underway between the national committee and the declaration assessment team. I repeat, should not prejudge the outcomes of ongoing consultations between the national committee and we would ask them to refrain from launching false accusations and undermining cooperation that is underway between Syria and OPCW.”
12. Zoom out, end of Council session
High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu today (11 Jun) told the Security Council that “sufficient information” had been gathered to consider three outstanding issues in Syria’s chemical weapons programme as “resolved.” However, Nakamitsu said, “further cooperation is needed to resolve the remaining outstanding issues.”
Out of the twenty-four outstanding issues in Syria’s original declaration in 2014, seventeen still remain unresolved as of the date of the latest monthly report.
Nakamitsu said, “I am encouraged to see the positive impacts of this renewed cooperation, which began with the resumption of consultations between the Declaration Assessment Team (DAT) and the Syrian National Authority in October 2023 after a gap of more than two and a half years.”
The substance of the outstanding issues, she told the Council, “concerns and involves, inter alia, undeclared research, production and / or weaponization of unknown quantities of chemical weapons and significant quantities of chemical warfare agents and / or precursors and chemical munitions whose fate has not yet been fully verified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Technical Secretariat.”
The High Representative said, “serious concerns remain regarding the presence of unexpected chemicals” in the samples collected by the DAT between 2020 and 2023 at several declared sites.”
She urged all parties “to not only maintain, but to enhance cooperation going forward, so that all outstanding issues regarding the initial and subsequent declarations submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic can be resolved.”
United States Ambassador Robert Wood told the Council that the US “has long been concerned the Syrian regime retains residual chemical weapons capability,” and noted that the OPCW “continues to uncover new alarming evidence.”
Wood said, “such results clearly demonstrated the Assad regime has neither declared nor accounted for the full history and scope of its chemical weapons program.”
For his part, Syrian Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak said, “Syria reiterates its request to the technical Secretariat of the OPCW and Western countries who continue to politicize this file and to use it for their hostile ends, to not prejudice the consultations underway between the national committee and the declaration assessment team.”
Aldahhak said, “we would ask them to refrain from launching false accusations and undermining cooperation that is underway between Syria and OPCW.”
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