U.S. pushes to extend inquiry over Syrian chemical attacks

UNITED NATIONS — The United States put into a final form a resolution that would extend the work of inspectors seeking to determine who is responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations sent reporters the brief final text of the resolution late Friday. The resolution, which the U.S. said is likely to come to a vote Monday, would extend the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism for another year.

Russia, a close ally of Syria, has criticized the Joint Investigative Mechanism, and it is unclear whether it would veto the resolution.

Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov, who heads the country’s delegation to the General Assembly’s disarmament committee, told U.N. reporters on Oct. 13 that Russia wants to make its decision after it sees a Joint Investigative Mechanism report, expected Thursday, on the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun that killed over 90 people.

The April 4 attack sparked anger around the world as photos and video of the aftermath, including quivering children dying on camera, were widely broadcast.

The United States blamed the Syrian military for the attack and launched a punitive strike days later on the Shayrat air base where the U.S. said the attack was launched. Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied using chemical weapons.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Wednesday that there is “overwhelming support” among Security Council members to extend the Joint Investigative Mechanism mandate, but she said Russia wants to see if the investigation blames Syria for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, in which case it will have no faith in the investigative body.

“If the report doesn’t blame the Syrians, then they say that they will” renew the Joint Investigative Mechanism’s mandate, she said.

“We can’t work like that,” Haley said. “We need to prove that it was actually a chemical, and then we need to look at who did it. We can’t go and pick and choose who we want to be at fault, who we don’t.”

The Joint Investigative Mechanism is a joint investigative body of the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The investigative body determined last year that the Syrian government was behind at least three attacks involving chlorine gas and that the Islamic State militant group was responsible for at least one involving mustard gas.

A fact-finding mission by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons reported June 30 that sarin nerve gas was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack. But it is up to the investigative body to determine responsibility

Russia has accused the United States and its Western allies of rushing to judgment and blaming the Syrian government for sarin use in Khan Sheikhoun. It has also criticized the June 30 report as “very biased.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in late August that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ fact-finding mission was looking at more than 60 alleged incidents of chemical-weapons use in Syria between December 2015 and the end of March 2016. He said it would focus its future work on “credible allegations.”

Edmond Mulet, the head of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, appealed to governments in July to stop exerting political pressure on his team’s investigators.