Syria’s foreign minister has told the global chemical weapons watchdog that the new government is committed to destroying any remaining stockpiles produced under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
Addressing a meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, Asaad al-Shibani vowed to “put an end to this painful legacy, to bring justice to victims, and to ensure that the compliance with international law is a solid one”.
But he added that Syria would “need the support of the international community”.
Assad’s government denied ever using chemical weapons during the 14-year civil war, but activists accused it of carrying out of dozens of chemical attacks.
In 2013, rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were fired at several rebel-held suburbs in Eastern and Western Ghouta, killing hundreds of people. UN experts confirmed the use of the nerve agent sarin but they were not asked to ascribe any blame.
Assad denied his forces fired the rockets, but he did agree to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and allow a joint OPCW-UN mission to destroy Syria’s declared chemical arsenal. However, questions about the accuracy and completeness of Syria’s declaration remained.
The OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team documented multiple uses of chemical weapons during the war, identifying the Syrian military as the perpetrator of five cases of chemical weapons use in 2017 and 2018.
They included the April 2018 attack on Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta, when a Syrian air force helicopter is believed to have dropped two cylinders filled with highly concentrated chlorine gas on two apartment buildings, killing at least 43 people.
An earlier OPCW fact-finding mission, which was not mandated to identify perpetrators, also found that chemical weapons were used or likely used in 20 other instances.
Last month, OPCW director general Fernando Arias visited Damascus to hold talks with Shibani and interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebel offensive that overthrew Assad in December.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Arias declared that “the evolving political landscape in Syria” provided the international community with “a new and historic opportunity to complete the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons programme”.
He said a team of technical experts from the OPCW would be deployed to Damascus in the coming days and begin planning visits to suspected chemical weapon sites.
Shibani also met the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, in The Hague on Wednesday.
The ICC said their talks “followed up on the prosecutor’s January visit to Damascus, exploring partnerships towards accountability for crimes committed in Syria”.
Syria is not a member of the ICC, but Khan has said the new government could accept the court’s jurisdiction as a first step, as Ukraine has done with respect to the war with Russia.
