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05Apr17

Russia submits its UN SC draft resolution about chemical weapons incident in Syria

Russia has submitted its draft resolution to the UN Security Council about the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun on Tuesday, Fedor Strzhizhovsky, press secretary of Russia's permanent representative to the UN, told reporters on Wednesday.

At the emergency meeting convened by the UN Security Council earlier on Wednesday, Russia criticized the West-drafted resolution "evidently drawn up in a hurry and extremely negligently," he said.

"Instead, we submitted our short draft resolution, drawn up in a business manner and aimed at conducting a true investigation rather than to appoint the guilty ones until the facts are established," Strzhizhovsky said, adding the UN Security Council had begun consultations and would try to draft "a compromise resolution."

In the meantime, France's Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre told reporters that the UN Security Council was holding talks in a constructive manner but the UN Security Council's members are "in mid-journey." France believes the resolution should be approved as soon as possible but the Security Council is unlikely to vote on the resolution on Wednesday, he added.

At the UN SC meeting, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Vladimir Safronkov proposed to reduce the substantive provisions of the resolution to one paragraph containing an appeal to the OPCW mission to "fully investigate the reports about the incident on the ground under the mandatory condition that the list of investigators will be submitted to the UN for approval and will be geographically balanced as well."

"A demand should be added here that the illegal armed groups controlling the area of the incident should ensure full and unhindered access to the area and to the required information for investigators," he said.

Draft resolution

The US, UK and France submitted their draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council's emergency meeting held on Wednesday. The resolution was drafted following an alleged air strike in the town of Khan Shaykhun by Syrian government warplanes in a suspected gas attack. The draft resolution demands that the Damascus government cooperate with the international team of investigators. It also threatens the country with sanctions in case of non-compliance.

The resolution condemns the "use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, in particular the attack on Khan Shaykhun reported on 4 April 2017" and expresses full support to an investigation by the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the UN and the OPCW.

The resolution also calls on the Syrian government to cooperate fully with the international investigators, including by providing them with "flight plans, flight logs, and any other information on air operations, including all flight plans or flight logs filed on April 4 2017.".

[Source: Itar Tass, The United Nations, 05Apr17]
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