President Trump’s top diplomat at the United Nations hailed a report that blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad for the use of chemical weapons, calling it a corroboration of western assessments and a shame to Assad’s supporters.
“Today’s report confirms what we have long known to be true,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Thursday. “Time and again, we see independent confirmation of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime. And in spite of these independent reports, we still see some countries trying to protect the regime. That must end now.”
That finding comes weeks before the expiration of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, comprised of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, responsible for investigating such incidents in Syria. Russia vetoed a U.S.-led effort to extend the life of the investigative panel, after months of arguing that the deadly April chemical attack may have been staged by terrorists.
“The panel is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhun on 4 April 2017,” the report said, per Agence France-Presse.
Russia is Assad’s chief backer in the fighting on the ground and at the United Nations Security Council. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s team maintains that the official reports lacked credibility, following controversies over what kind of access investigators would have to the attack site and how they conducted the investigation. Russia emphasized that the U.N. investigators didn’t personally collect the soil samples that produced some of the most damning evidence of sarin gas.
“In May-June the OPCW was assuring us that it was working on securing safe access to Khan Shaykhun but later on declared there was no need to visit the site because the use of sarin was considered to have been established,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.
It was established by the testing of soil samples collected by the Assad regime itself, western diplomats replied. “These attacks are not intended to get us closer to the truth; they are intended to hide the truth,” U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison said at the U.N. on Tuesday. “They are not designed to get us closer to accountability for chemical weapons use in Syria. They are designed to shield the perpetrators for some of the worst war crimes of our century.”
Haley signaled a plan to use the report to shame Russia over their support for Assad, as the United States and its allies hope to prevent the chemical weapons investigative panel from disbanding.
“The Security Council must send a clear message that the use of chemical weapons by anyone will not be tolerated, and must fully support the work of the impartial investigators,” Haley said. “Countries that fail to do so are no better than the dictators or terrorist who use these terrible weapons.”
Even if Russia doesn’t change its posture, Haley’s predecessor at the U.N. Security Council suggested the report could help U.S. diplomats.
“For those wondering why today’s [chemical weapons] finding matters (given clear prior evidence Assad’s forces did it): you’d be surprised how many countries take refuge in absence of ‘official’ proof to duck issuing judgment,” former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, who served under then-President Barack Obama, tweeted Thursday.
