Since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, the Security Council has failed to reach an agreement. The text drawn up on Thursday could be voted on as early as Friday evening.
After weeks of intense negotiations, Russia and the United States reached an agreement on Thursday at the UN on a text framing the destruction of the chemical arsenal of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. This resolution, which could be adopted as early as Friday evening, constitutes a major diplomatic breakthrough. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, the Security Council has never managed to agree on a text, Moscow and Beijing having vetoed three times.
"This is a very significant step forward with a Security Council acting, in unity, to impose legal and binding obligations on Syria for the first time.", reacted Samantha Power, ambassador of the United States to the UN. The draft resolution, of which AFP has obtained a copy, provides for the possibility for the Council to pronounce sanctions against the Assad regime if the chemical disarmament plan is not respected.
However, the text does not specify what measures are envisaged and does not impose automatic sanctions. In the event of breach of the commitments, a second resolution would be needed, which leaves Moscow, an ally of Damascus, a right of scrutiny and a possibility of blocking.
This text was debated Thursday evening during a meeting of the 15 members of the Security Council. The vote, at a ministerial level, is scheduled for Friday, the French mission to the UN said on its Twitter account. “I hope this message will be heard and understood in Damascus”said Mark Lyall Grant, British Ambassador to the UN.
Before a vote on Friday evening, it will be necessary to obtain a green light from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for the dismantling plan developed on September 14 in Geneva by the Russians and the Americans. For the head of French diplomacy Laurent Fabius, this text "take a step forward" et “takes up the requirementsmade by France.
For his part, Al-Assad reaffirmed in an interview with the Venezuelan channel Télésur that his regime would not pose "no obstacles" to the dismantling of its chemical arsenal, emphasizing that his country considered itself “generally as engaged by all conventions” which he signed. Russia has said it is ready to join international efforts to monitor the sites where these weapons will be destroyed.
On the ground, UN experts have begun new investigations into alleged use of chemical weapons, following an investigation last month that found the use of sarin gas on a large scale near Damascus, without point the finger at those responsible. Washington, which had reported 1 dead, accused the regime of being behind the attack.
Six UN expertsstarted working today“, told AFP a UN official, without specifying where the team, led by Aake Sellström, had gone. This official claimed that the experts would be in Syria "for several days".
Alarming health situation
The August 21 chemical attack occurred in the Ghouta region where, according to the opposition, are currently blocked “1,7 million inhabitants, more than half of whom are children”. "There is no electricity or water and basic food products are scarce (...) This is a policy of collective punishment carried out by the regime", denounced the Opposition Coalition in a press release. Ghouta is one of the main strongholds of the rebellion in the Damascus region.
Regime troops continue to shell rebel strongholds across the country on a daily basis. Thursday, after a relatively calm month, violent raids resumed on the districts of Old Homs (center), besieged for more than a year by the army, according to activists.
In Raqa, fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (EIIL, jihadists), which controls the majority of this northern city, set fire to statues and crosses in two churches on Thursday, and destroyed the cross of the bell tower of one of them, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Several Christian and Muslim places of worship have been attacked since the beginning of the revolt against the regime in March 2011, which turned over the months into a civil war that left more than 110 dead and more than two million refugees. According to the UN humanitarian coordination office (OCHA), the health situation continues to deteriorate in Syria, with the destruction of hospitals, the scarcity of doctors and the lack of medicines.
The ministers of the five major powers (United States, France, United Kingdom, China, Russia) are due to meet Friday evening in New York with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his mediator in Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. Ban hopes to announce at the end of this meeting a date for the future peace conference in Syria, supposed to bring the country out of the conflict. According to the UN, more than two million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries and about six million of them have been internally displaced.
source: Liberation.fr
Terms & Conditions
Subscribe
Report
My comments