MADRID, 12 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Fernando Arias, has exposed this Friday to the Security Council the “gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies” on Syria’s declaration of its chemical weapons arsenal, for which cannot be considered “exact and complete”.
In this sense, with respect to the initial statement issued by Syria on its arsenal and use of chemical weapons, the representative has stressed that three initial issues have been resolved, while another 19 remain pending.
One of them, in particular, refers to a chemical weapons production facility declared by Syria as never used for the production of this type of weapons, while UN information indicates that it did take place.
Arias has detailed that on October 2, two reports were published by the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) of the OPCW in Syria on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Aleppo in November 2018 and in Saraqib in August 2016.
The conclusion of both was that it was not possible to establish whether, indeed, it had been used or not, while the mission continues to analyze the information gathered in its most recent investigations in eight different incidents.
Therefore, the OPCW asks the Government of Syria to declare the exact types and quantities of chemical agents produced and incorporated into weapons.
The OPCW, which was limited in principle to confirming the use of prohibited substances, amended its statutes in 2018 to create the ITT and also be able to identify the perpetrators of the attacks.
Previously, the Joint Investigation Mechanism of the OPCW and the United Nations (JIM) determined that the Syrian forces used sarin gas and chlorine in several of their attacks, something denied by Damascus, which accused the Islamic State of using mustard gas.
–
