THE UN SECURITY Council unanimously passed a landmark resolution last night ordering the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons and condemning a murderous poison gas attack in Damascus.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon, who called the resolution “the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time,” said he hopes to convene a peace conference in mid-November.
The major powers overcame a prolonged deadlock to approve the first council resolution on the conflict which has been running for two and a half years and has left more than 100,000 dead.
Resolution 2118, the result of bruising negotiations between the United States and Russia, gives international binding force to a plan drawn up by the two to eliminate President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical arms.
The plan calls for Syria’s estimated 1,000 tonnes of chemical weapons to be put under international control by mid-2014. Experts say the timetable is very tight.
International experts are expected to start work in Syria next week. Britain and China announced that they will offer finance to the disarmament operation.
Divisions over the war remained clear, however, in comments by their foreign ministers after the vote.
“Should the regime fail to act, there will be consequences,” US Secretary of State John Kerry warned the 15-member council after the vote sealing a US-Russian agreement.
But Kerry hailed the resolution. “The Security Council has shown that when we put aside politics for the common good, we are still capable of doing big things,” he said.
(U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry embraces Rwanda’s Ambassador Eugene-Richard Gasana. Pic: Craig Ruttle/AP)
No automatic punitive measures
There are no immediate sanctions over a chemical weapons attack, an event UN experts confirmed. But it allows for a new vote on possible measures if the Russia-US plan is breached.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that there were no automatic punitive measures, and that the resolution applied equally to the Syrian opposition.
He said the council would take “actions which are commensurate with the violations, which will have to proven 100 per cent.”
Russia, Assad’s main ally, has rejected any suggestion of sanctions or military force against Assad. It has already used its veto power as a permanent Security Council member to block three Western-drafted resolutions on Syria.
The resolution “condemns in the strongest terms any use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, in particular the attack on August 21, 2013, in violation of international law.”
The United States says the attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta left more than 1,400 dead. It blamed Assad’s government for the sarin gas assault and threatened a military strike over the attack.
The government has denied responsibility.
Should Syria not comply with the resolution, the Security Council members agreed to “impose measures under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.”
Syria attacks must be ‘accountable’
The charter can authorize the use of sanctions or military force. But diplomats said Russia would fiercely oppose any force against its ally. All sides agreed that new action will require a new vote.
Russia also rebuffed calls by European powers Britain and France for the Ghouta attack to be referred to the International Criminal Court.
The resolution expressed “strong conviction” that those responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria “should be held accountable.”
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