The United States and Russia have reached agreement on a draft United Nations resolution aimed at identifying the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria so they can be brought to justice, diplomats said August 5.
A draft resolution has been circulated to all 15 UN Security Council members, the diplomats said, and If there are no objections to the text, the resolution could be put to a vote as early as August 7.
The draft resolution asks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in coordination with OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu, to establish an “OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism” charged with identifying individuals, groups, and governments who perpetrated the use of chemicals weapons, including chlorine, in Syria.
Spokesman for the Syrian Coalition Salem al-Meslet calls for holding an urgent UN Security Council meeting to enforce the UN Resolution 2118 under Chapter VII and to refer war criminals to the International Criminal Court.
“The international community and members of the UN Security Council bear full responsibility for the catastrophic situation in Syria as they have so far failed to end the ongoing tragedy in Syria or to hold war criminals and perpetrators of genocidal crimes to account,” Meslet said.
“The UN Security Council has also failed to enforce the resolutions 2118 of 2013 concerning the use of chemical weapons, and paragraph 21 of the same resolution, which provides for the imposition of measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in the case of non-compliance with this resolution, including the unauthorized transfer of chemical weapons and the use of chemical weapons in Syria.” (Source: Syrian Coalition + Agencies)
