Statement by Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN on the Issue of Terrorism and Chemical Weapons in the Middle East
Against the backdrop of numerous reports about the production and use of chemical weapons by terrorists in Iraq and Syria, as well as the risk of this dangerous weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of non-state militias in Iraq and Libya, the Russian delegation deemed it necessary to flag these risks and send a strong signal to all regional actors, that the use of chemical weapons by whomsoever will have consequences.
Therefore, last week we proposed a draft Security Council Presidential Statement.
However, several Council members immediately tried to shift the focus of the statement in a completely different direction – to the Syrian chemical weapons programme (which had been repeatedly discussed in a different context) to “balance” to the chemical terrorist threat.
We made attempts to accommodate many of the concerns expressed to us by those delegations, though we could not take all the amendments proposed and refocus the text. No “balance” can be acceptable between the Syrian government which last year adhered to the Chemical Weapons Convention and in a record time span and in difficult war-time conditions facilitated the destruction or removal of all its chemical weapons components - and terrorists seeking to get hold of weapons of mass destruction.
Still, we continued to face obstruction.
We tried to introduce our proposals on chemical weapon terrorist threat in the course of the discussion of another draft Presidential Statement - prepared by the Australian delegation. We saw the same attitude again.
We believe that while terrorists continue to improve skills of producing and using chemical war agents as well as other types of WMD, double standards are unacceptable and can have a devastating effect.
