Chemical weapon watchdog showdown

BRITAIN and its allies were squaring off against Russia yesterday in a high-stakes diplomatic drive to give the world’s global chemical watchdog the power to identify those behind toxic arms attacks.

The meeting opened in The Hague as inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are also expected to unveil soon a long-awaited report into an alleged sarin and chlorine gas attack in April in the Syrian town of Douma. Medics and rescuers say 40 people were killed.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was to head up his country’s delegation to a rare special session of the OPCW’s top policy-making body, and was due to address the session later in the day.

“We want to strengthen the Organisation entrusted with overseeing the ban on chemical weapons,” the British delegation said in a tweet.

There has however been growing international concern about repeated allegations of the use of poison gases in the Iraq and Syria conflicts.

It is feared that although deadly chemical weapons were once largely shunned as taboo, their use is once again becoming gradually normalized.

Opening the session, the conference chairman, Abdelouahab Bellouki, said, those responsible for chemical weapons attacks “need to be punished on the basis of true and strong evidence.”

Tensions already ran high early Tuesday, and the talks will move behind closed doors today and possibly linger on until tomorrow for a key vote on the British draft decision. It is only the fourth time in the body’s history that such a special session has been convened.