Statement by the Head of the Russian Delegation, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Kirill Lysogorskiy at the Fifth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, The Hague, 15 May 2023
16 May 2023 21:13
937-16-05-2023
Unofficial translation
In 2022, the world community celebrated the 25th anniversary of the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Since its establishment, the OPCW has made impressive progress: in total, 99 per cent of the chemical weapons stockpiles declared by the possessor States Parties to the Convention have been verifiably destroyed, and chemical weapons production facilities have been dismantled. Industry verification activities have been established targeting facilities producing chemicals scheduled under the Convention; measures are taken to develop international cooperation in the chemical field.
Following the last Review Conference, an important decision has been made by consensus to add chemicals to Schedule 1 of the Annex on Chemicals to the Convention (C-24/DEC.4 and C-24/DEC.5 dated 27 November 2019). This step has shown that the OPCW is able to take effective and responsible measures to strengthen the Convention. It is virtually the only international organisation with necessary mechanisms to ensure effective destruction and non-proliferation of chemical weapons.
In this context, the OPCW can rightly be regarded as a critical pillar in the international chemical security system, which prevents the proliferation of a barbaric type of WMD.
At the same time, there are grounds for concern. In recent years, the United States and its allies have set out to dismantle the existing system of international institutions, replacing them with some "rules-based order developed by them". This is also reflected in the OPCW activity.
The Organisation's work is highly politicized. The dividing lines between the States Parties to the CWC are deepening. It becomes a regular practice to use the OPCW against certain States that, for one reason or another, turn out to be undesirable to the Euro-Atlantic allies. These processes destroy the Convention regime from within and, should they not be addressed soon, the world risks losing the Organisation as designed by the founding fathers of the Convention.
The Russian Federation was an architect of the Convention and cannot accept steps aimed to unilaterally change the scope of the CWC and the purely technical nature of the Organisation's activities. Any fundamental amendments should be introduced solely with the support of all the States Parties to the Convention, without exception, in accordance with its Article XV. We call upon the States Parties to make every effort to bring the work of the Organisation back within its mandated technical framework with consensus decision-making.
The declining objectivity of the decisions made by the OPCW can be clearly seen in the Syrian "chemical dossier" devised by the United States and its Euro-Atlantic allies. Investigations into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria were conducted in violation of the provisions of the Convention and the basic instruments regulating verification. In a number of cases, the results were tailored to fit the framework set by the "clients" to create a pseudo-evidentiary basis for attributing responsibility to the legitimate Syrian Government for the chemical provocations carried out by the Syrian armed opposition sponsored by the West.
The decision forced by a vote in 2018 to authorize the OPCW Technical Secretariat to "identify the perpetrators" for the use of chemical weapons was the next step in the process of destroying the integrity of the CWC and the credibility of the Organisation. The establishment of an "attributing" Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) goes beyond the Organisation's mandate and encroaches onto the exclusive competence of the UN Security Council. The conclusions of this illegitimate entity, made through a compilation of facts, are used to put pressure on States Parties. A concrete example is the decision to suspend Syria's rights and privileges based on the IIT doubtful conclusions taken by vote at the 25th session of the Conference of the States Parties in April 2021. The report on the Douma incident, published in January 2023 by the OPCW Technical Secretariat on the basis of the IIT politicized conclusions, clearly demonstrates the development of this approach. The IIT did not actually conduct any investigation in accordance with the provisions of the Convention, but only compiled five-year-old materials in a version beneficial to Western countries.
Despite the artificial difficulties created both by individual States Parties to the CWC and by the OPCW Technical Secretariat itself with regard to the Syrian "chemical dossier", Damascus continues to cooperate with the Organisation in good faith within the mechanisms set out in the Convention and its additional voluntary commitments. We believe it necessary to reverse the unfounded decision to suspend Syria's rights and privileges and we propose that a relevant decision be prepared by the Conference of the States Parties in this regard.
The Organisation is being devalued in the system of international relations. Since 2018, the "collective West" has launched on its platform a large-scale anti-Russian disinformation campaign with unsubstantiated accusations against the Russian Federation in the alleged "poisoning" of the Skripal father and daughter and Alexey Navalny. We regard these cases exclusively as provocations by Western intelligence services attempting to portray Russia as a violator of the CWC. There are statements with unsubstantiated accusations against Russia and categorical demands to admit guilt and repent. However, the so-called accusers have still not answered the questions posed by the Russian Federation. The requests to the OPCW Technical Secretariat for assistance in the investigation remain without action, and the existing legal mechanisms for cooperation continue to be ignored. Western countries obstinately refuse to interact with the Russian competent authorities in establishing the true circumstances of the incidents with the Skripals and the Russian blogger.
Since December 2021, the Russian Federation has been warning of preparations for chemical provocations in Ukraine by Ukrainian paramilitary formations, including those involving the intelligence services of Western States, providing facts of the Zelenskiy regime's use of chemically hazardous facilities for provocative and terrorist purposes. The Russian Federation has repeatedly brought this information to the attention of the OPCW, and the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly. The attack at the facility "Sumykhimprom" (Sumy) on March 21, 2022, as a result of which large amount of ammonia was released into the atmosphere, and the attack on chemical facility "Azot" (Severodonetsk) on May 31, 2022, resulted in destruction of the container with nitric acid, are the confirmation of such provocations realized in practice.
An essential objective of the Convention is the destruction of existing stockpiles of chemical weapons, both declared and abandoned. The fact that the Russian Federation destroyed its stockpiles of chemical weapons ahead of schedule, despite the financial and economic difficulties it faced, is the sign of its serious approach to the CWC. At the same time, the United States of America is still postponing the full chemical demilitarization of the country. We urge the United States to complete the destruction of its remaining chemical arsenals as soon as possible.
Effective and non-discriminatory implementation of the provisions of Article XI of the Convention remains a key objective of the OPCW. However, statements made in support of efforts under Article XI must be backed up by real action that is not based on selective approaches. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the United States and its allies continue to impose illegal unilateral sanctions in the field of chemical activities against undesirable States Parties to the CWC, which is a flagrant violation of international law in this area and of the provisions of Article XI of the Convention. We call on Western countries to abandon their unlawful sanctions policies which only serves the benefit of promoting their own self-serving purposes.
The reprisal against Syria as a State that voluntarily accepted obligations under the CWC calls into question the possibility of universalization of the Convention, by bringing together all the States that still remain outside its legal framework. Besides, the second component, which is an integral part of universality - the unified interpretation of the provisions of the Convention, opened for signature in 1993, is completely eliminated.
All this undermines the OPCW's credibility with the global community.
The extremely unhealthy situation in the OPCW prevents the positive potential of this once reputable international entity, which received the Nobel Peace Prize, from being realized. For the sensible majority of people, the OPCW is now associated with scandals, manipulation and political pressure. Unfortunately, this situation quite correlates with the general policy of the "collective West" to ensure its dominance within CWC and other multilateral platforms. This relates to the most important conventions - on biological weapons, narcotic and psychotropic substances, Stockholm and Rotterdam Conventions and other international treaties. This is done in order to shift the responsibility for what happens with the trafficking of these substances controlled by abovementioned conventions in their own jurisdiction to other CWC States Parties.
It is envisaged to use CWC verification mechanism in order to strengthen dominance of the West in the framework of other specialized international formats. Australian group - a specialized club serving to meet the interests of the Western countries, is brought to the forefront as a certain alternative to the control mechanism on export of chemicals.
We believe that the States Parties to the Convention that are capable of realistically assessing the current situation need to draw appropriate conclusions and jointly resist the imposition of unjustified decisions on the OPCW governing bodies and its degradation in general.
We call upon the delegations to hold the Fifth Review Conference as effectively as possible and to agree on a final document that will objectively and impartially reflect all the facts of the Convention's operation over the past five years. We are convinced that a successful Conference is only possible if the approaches and interests of all the States Parties to the CWC without exception are duly taken into account.
For our part, we confirm our intention to work constructively.
We request that this statement be circulated as an official document of the Fifth Review Conference and posted in the Catalyst network and on the OPCW website.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
