Syrian Envoy to UN Says Western States Fabricate Lies on Syria’s Cooperation with OPCW

During a session of the UN Security Council, Sabbagh said Western countries lie to pave the way for passing resolutions against the Arab country and to establish illegitimate mechanisms to flagrantly politicize the work of the global chemical watchdog, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.

He once again stressed that Syria has never used any type of the banned weapons or any toxic chemicals despite the fact that its army forces and their allied fighters faced huge challenges due to appalling crimes committed by foreign-backed terrorist groups and their supporters.  

Sabbagh reminded that Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 2013 and cooperated with the UN and the OPCW to dispose of its chemical weapons stockpile and production facilities, saying this was achieved in mid-2014 and was confirmed in several reports by the global chemical watchdog.

Damascus has consistently denied using chemical weapons.

The Syrian envoy said that despite fulfillment of its obligations under the CWC and full cooperation with the OPCW, Syria has been targeted by outright lies fabricated by Western countries, which have also launched misleading campaigns against Damascus to pass punitive resolutions and devised illegitimate mechanisms, including the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT), to politicize the technical work of the OPCW in a bid to distract the watchdog from its goals.

Lies and misleading campaigns by these Western countries, Sabbagh said, have turned the reports of the OPCW’s Technical Secretariat and teams to a significant component of the hostile campaigns against the Arab country.

He stressed that such practices have negatively affected the work of the global chemical watchdog, and the credibility and reliability of its reports, as well as the professionalism of its staff.

The Syrian envoy said that in December, an investigation team from the OPCW inspected the facilities of Barzeh and Jamraya near Damascus, a month after the team paid a visit to the western province of Hama with the aim of resuming investigations into the attacks that allegedly took place in the province back in 2017.

Sabbagh said he wondered why the investigations were not completed after five years since the terrorists had used the chemical weapons there.