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UN receives Syria papers on chemical weapons ban
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The United Nations has received documents from the Syrian government seeking to join the international convention banning chemical weapons, a spokesman said yesterday.
President Bashar Assad’s government will not, however, immediately join the 1993 convention which bans the production and stockpiling of the arms, Farhan Haq said.
The United States and its allies accused Assad’s government of staging an August 21 attack with sarin gas near Damascus in which hundreds died.
In a bid to head off a threatened US military strike, Russia proposed a plan to put Syria’s chemical arsenal under international control. Syria said it will join the international convention as part of the plan.
“In the past few hours we have received a document from the government of Syria which is being translated,” said Haq, adding that it was “an accession document concerning the chemical weapons convention.”
According to UN experts, accession is where a country accepts the terms of a treaty and normally has the same legal effect as ratification.
Haq said it would be “the first step” to becoming a full member of the convention and it would take “a period of days” before Syria formally joins.
Assad confirmed for the first time yesterday that Syria plans to give up its chemical weapons and demanded that the US drop threats of military action against his government in return.
“When we see that the United States truly desires stability in our region and stops threatening and seeking to invade, as well as stops arms supplies to terrorists then we can believe that we can follow through with the necessary processes,” Assad said in an interview on Russian television.
Washington should dispense with the “politics of threats,” he said.
US President Barack Obama said yesterday he was hopeful US-Russia talks due to start in Geneva could produce a workable weapons transfer plan that will avert the need for military action.
Assad has rejected suggestions that the threat of airstrikes had forced his hand.
“Syria is handing over chemical weapons under international control because of Russia,” he said. “We agreed to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international supervision in response to Russia’s request and not because of American threats,” he said.
“In my view, the agreement will begin to take effect a month after its signing, and Syria will begin turning over to international organizations data about its chemical weapons,” Assad added.
“This is a two-sided process and we are counting, first of all, on the United States to stop conducting the policy of threats regarding Syria,” he said.
Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil also said yesterday that the Russian proposal will succeed only if the US and its allies pledge not to attack Syria in the future. “We want a pledge that neither it nor anyone else will launch an aggression against Syria,” Jamil said in Damascus.
Syria’s top rebel commander, General Salim Idris, slammed the Russian proposal, calling for Assad to be put on trial for allegedly ordering the August 21 attack. Many rebels had held out hopes that US-led punitive strikes on Assad’s forces would help tip the scales in their favor in Syria’s civil war, which has claimed over 100,000 lives so far.
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