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STORY: UN / SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS
TRT: 06:16
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / ARABIC / CHINESE / NATS
DATELINE: 05 DECEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations headquarters
05 DECEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs:
“The DAT (Declaration Assessment Team) has raised and reported a total of 26 outstanding issues with regard to the Syrian Arab Republic’s declaration, of which 19 remain unresolved. These include two recently opened outstanding issues related to potentially undeclared full-scale development and production of chemical weapons at two declared chemical weapons-related facilities, which were previously declared as having never been in operation.”
4. Wide shot, Security Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs:
“It also involves potentially large quantities of chemical warfare agents, the production of which has not been declared by the Syrian Arab Republic to the OPCW Technical Secretariat. I reiterate that this is extremely worrying.”
6. Wide shot, Security Council
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Nidal Shikhani, Director General of the Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria:
“Chlorine was used in different occasions and locations, and it continued for five years. Sarin was also used in Douma and Latakia, and in both cities, the sarin used matched the declared Syrian stock. Such violations prove the continued manipulation of the Syrian Arab Republic with OPCW. The reports of the organization mentioned the outstanding issues, and it seems that the Syrian Arab Republic adopted a policy of procrastination.”
8. Wide shot, Security Council
9. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Dmitry Polyanskiy, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“You and your satellites announced during today's meeting will be viewed by us purely as elements of the baseless smear campaign against Syria and Russia. We have no have no basis to provide any significance, to give any significance to these statements, and we categorically, in advance, refute all of the allegations which you and your colleagues will levy against us. I wish to warn you right now that we also repudiate any possible reports about any other stagings and fabrications that can be organized at the what has been seized by as organized terrorist attacks from the HTS (Tahrir al-Sham) late last month. I refer to those territories. And when it comes to believing you and your colleagues, we have no faith, and any actions in that regard will merely result in a further undermining of cooperation through the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
10. Wide shot, Security Council
11. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Sun Zhiqiang, Minister-Counselor of the Chinese Mission, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, China:
“Likewise, we would like to express our concern about the arrangements for a second brief at this meeting, we hope the rotating presidency going forward, should engage and consult with council members beforehand and make arrangements based on consensus.”
12. Wide shot, Security Council
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Wood, Alternative Representative for Special Political Affairs, United States:
“Let me just say, very briefly, a very, very small group of states present in this chamber would obviously prefer to hide the truth about the Assad regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. The truth cannot be hidden. The perpetrators of these acts will not be able to hide. They will be held accountable.”
14. Wide shot, Security Council
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert Wood, Alternative Representative for Special Political Affairs, United States:
“The Russian statement this morning was a sad moment for this Council. We hear nothing but lies, pathological provocation, personal attacks. Statement was right out of the Russian playbook, blame others, ridicule the professionalism of the international mechanisms and their employees, and then claim is illegitimate the findings of these international bodies, and then state that any future evidence of chemical weapons use is not to be trusted because of political nature. Colleagues, the United States is closely monitoring the situation in Aleppo and Idlib, and are in contact with partners on the ground, we have seen some reports of human rights abuses, and we hope to see those now in control of Aleppo and Idlib hold those accountable who have perpetrated these abuses and promote fair and equal rights and access for resources.”
16. Wide shot, Security Council
17. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Koussay Aldahhak, Permanent Representative of Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations:
“Two days ago, we've listened to warnings in this chamber by the director of the so-called White Helmets group about the possibility of the use of chemical weapons in light of the long record of this organization in spreading false allegations and fabrications about alleged use of chemical weapons and fabricating evidence. We warn, we warn the Security Council that Tahrir al-Sham, Al-Nusra Front and the so-called Turkistan Islamic party, the terrorist party, fabricate incidents of using chemical weapons and attribute them to the Syrian Arab Army.”
18. Wide shot, Security Council
19. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Koussay Aldahhak, Permanent Representative of Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations:
“You have to remember always that political disagreement with any country does not mean or allow that Al-Nusra Front, the terrorist group, or those who lead them, its leader, Abu Hamid Al Julani, that does not allow them to control the city of Aleppo.”
20. Wide shot, end of Security Council
Briefing the Security Council, the top UN official for disarmament expressed "serious concern" over Syria’s chemical weapons program, saying that the assessment team "has raised and reported a total of 26 outstanding issues with regard to the Syrian Arab Republic’s declaration, of which 19 remain unresolved."
High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu also said, “the OPCW Technical Secretariat reports that, at this stage, the substance of the 19 outstanding issues remains a ‘serious concern’ as it involves large quantities of chemical warfare agents and munitions that were reportedly destroyed or otherwise consumed prior to the Syrian Arab Republic’s accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the fate of which cannot be fully verified by the OPCW. It also involves potentially large quantities of chemical warfare agents, the production of which has not been declared by the Syrian Arab Republic to the OPCW Technical Secretariat.”
Nakamitsu said, “I reiterate that this is extremely worrying.”
Nidal Shikhani, Director General of the Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria, said chlorine was used in various locations over five years and sarin was used in Douma and Latakia, matching Syria’s declared stock. “Such violations prove the continued manipulation of the Syrian Arab Republic with OPCW,” Shikhani said, adding that Syria had “adopted a policy of procrastination.”
Russia’s Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy said the claims were part of a “baseless smear campaign” organized by the United States. “We categorically refute all of the allegations,” Polyanskiy said, adding that they were “staged fabrications” from groups like HTS (Tahrir al-Sham).
China’s representative Sun Zhiqiang, echoed the statements saying, “Likewise, we would like to express our concern about the arrangements for a second briefer at this meeting.”
The United States said Syria’s use of chemical weapons could not be hidden. “A very, very small group of states present in this chamber would obviously prefer to hide the truth about the Assad regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people,” U.S. representative Robert Wood said.
Syria’s UN representative, Koussay Aldahhak, said groups like the White Helmets and Tahrir al-Sham fabricated incidents and falsely attributed them to the Syrian government. we warn the Security Council that Tahrir al-Sham, Al-Nusra Front and the so-called Turkistan Islamic party, the terrorist party, fabricate incidents of using chemical weapons and attribute them to the Syrian Arab Army,” Aldahhak said.
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