Watchdog gets power to blame attackers

MEMBER nations of the global chemical weapons watchdog yesterday voted to give the organization the authority to apportion blame for attacks, expanding its powers following a bitter dispute between Britain and its western allies against Russia.

The vote got the necessary two-thirds majority during a meeting at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which so far lacked the authority to say who was responsible when there was a chemical attack. Many nations felt hamstrung by the limits especially following the suspected chemical attacks in Syria.

The vote followed a proposal from Britain. UK representative Peter Wilson said it had 30 co-sponsors, and that the support will allow OPCW “not just to say when chemical weapons are used, but by whom.”

The office of UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who had traveled to the OPCW headquarters in The Hague on Tuesday to push for the proposal, said that the Nobel Prize-winning body “will immediately start work to help identify those responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.”

“It fills a crucial gap left when the United Nations Security Council was prevented from renewing its own investigation in November,” the statement said, referring to Russia’s objections last fall.

Norway’s ambassador Martin Soerby called it “a decisive and necessary decision to expose the perpetrators of chemical attacks.”