“It is essential that the members of the Security Council come together to ensure consequences for those who have used chemical weapons in Syria”, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said in a statement.
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The United States will work with our global partners to seek accountability through appropriate diplomatic mechanisms, including through the United Nations Security Council and the OPCW.
Between December 2015 and August 2016, the UN-OPCW investigators said they received more than 130 new allegations from UN member states of use of chemical weapons or toxic chemicals as weapons in Syria.
Samples collected by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons at multiple sites in Syria revealed chemical agents that Syria never declared after it agreed in 2013 to turn over all its stockpiles for destruction and join the Chemical Weapons Convention, according to a two-page summary of a confidential OPCW report that was given to the United Nations Security Council.
The NSC statement went on to accuse the regime of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention and a United Nations resolution.
In 2013 Syria agreed to dismantle and destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons in a deal hailed by Russian Federation and the U.S. The Security Council passed a resolution that pledged to evoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which authorizes military force and sanctions, if chemical weapons were transferred to or used in Syria.
It also confirmed that in August 2015 ISIS used mustard gas against civilians in Syria.
It determined responsibility in three cases, said three attacks pointed towards government responsibility but were not conclusive, and described three others as inconclusive.
“When it comes to proliferation, use of chemical weapons, such weapons of mass destruction, we can not afford being weak and the council will have to act”, he told reporters.
One of the Chlorine attacks took place in Talmenes, in the Idlib governorate, on 21 April, 2014 and the other in Sarmin, in the same province, on 16 March, 2015, JIM found.
The council is due to discuss the report on Tuesday and could decide to impose sanctions on Syria or ask the International Criminal Court to take up the matter as a war crime. The report “states clearly that the Syrian regime and Daesh have perpetrated chemical attacks in Syria”, said French Deputy Ambassador Alexis Lamek.
Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said that Moscow would need to study the UN document before taking further steps.
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The findings of the report indicate that the Syrian Air Force used a chemical weapon when it bombed villages in the northeastern part of the country.
