Duel over chemical watchdog’s bite
Western allies pitted against Russia on proposal to enhance organisation’s powers to stop toxic gas attacks
Britain, the US and their allies squared off against Russia yesterday in a high-stakes diplomatic battle seeking to empower the world’s global chemical watchdog with the authority to identify those behind toxic arms attacks.
The meeting opened in The Hague as inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were expected soon to unveil a long-awaited report into an alleged sarin and chlorine gas attack in April in the Syrian town of Douma.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was to head 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.
“We want to empower the @OPCW to identify those responsible for chemical weapons attacks.”
London called the gathering of the OPCW’s state party members after the nerve agent attack in March on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English town of Salisbury, which Britain and its allies have blamed on Russia.
There has been growing global concern about repeated allegations of the use of poison gases in the Iraq and Syria conflicts and alarm at the assassination last year of the North Korean leader’s half-brother in a rare nerve agent attack at the Kuala Lumpur airport.
It is feared that use of deadly chemical weapons, first seen during World War 1, is becoming gradually normalised due to the lack of effective ways to hold perpetrators to account.
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”.
“In spite of different and divergent positions and opinions, we are all committed to constructive cooperation to rid once and for all the world of chemical weapons.”
Tensions ran high from the start yesterday.
It took three hours of a heated back-and-forth between the delegates of Russia, Syria and Iran against those of the US and Canada just to adopt the agenda. 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 history that such a special session has been convened.
Russia has already denounced the meeting, and the head of the delegation, Georgy Kalamanov, said Moscow would not support Britain’s draft decision and would unveil its own, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
“We believe the powers that Britain wants to give the OPCW are the powers of the UN Security Council and this is the only body which has a right to make such decisions,” Kalamanov said.
But others, including France and the US, believe it is time the organisation’s role evolved.
“The mandate of the OPCW must be adapted to the challenges of the 21st century,” a French diplomat said.
“It was conceived in an entirely different context to independently verify the proper destruction by the major powers during the Cold War of their chemical weapons stocks.”
A two-thirds majority is needed for Britain’s draft to pass, with about 143 countries out of the OPCW’s 193 attending the meetings.
Russia was reportedly already working behind the scenes to defeat Britain’s proposal. –