Syria resolution 'in next two days'

Russian deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov said the text of the resolution would include a reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter
26 September 2013

The United Nations Security Council, long paralysed by deep divisions over how to deal with the Syrian conflict, is about two days away from agreeing on a resolution to require Damascus to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpiles, Russia's deputy foreign minister has said.

Gennady Gatilov said the text of the resolution would include a reference to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows for military and non-military actions to promote peace and security.

But he stressed that there would not be an automatic trigger for such measures, which means the council will have to follow up with another resolution if Syria fails to comply.

The US and Russia had been at odds on how to enforce the resolution. US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov met for nearly 90 minutes on Tuesday and American officials said that while there had been progress in some areas, they could not agree on the text, which the US had been insisting be enforceable.

President Barack Obama's threatened US strikes against President Bashar Assad's regime following an August 21 suspected poison gas attack has led to a flurry of diplomatic activity. Mr Kerry made a surprise offer that Syria could avert US military action by turning over "every single bit of his chemical weapons" to international control within a week. Russia, Syria's most important ally, and Assad's government, quickly agreed on the broad proposal.

Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov then signed an agreement in Geneva on September 14, but it has taken time and tough negotiations to work out the details.

The five permanent veto-wielding members of the Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - known as the P5 - have been discussing for the past few weeks what to include in a new resolution requiring that Syria's chemical weapons stockpile be secured and dismantled.

The council has been blocked on Syria, with Russia and China vetoing three Western-backed resolutions aimed at pressuring Assad to end the violence which has killed more than 100,000 people.

But Mr Gatilov said the negotiations are "going quite well" and the draft resolution should be finalised "very soon - within the next two days, I think".

As for Chapter 7, he said: "It will be mentioned but there is the understanding, of course, (that) there is no automaticity in engaging Chapter 7."

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius agreed that there are still "a few details to solve, but I think we shall reach a common resolution, maybe today, or tomorrow".

"I'm pretty optimistic because there were three elements which were a bit difficult, really difficult," he told students at Columbia University yesterday.

"The first one was to include a sentence which would say that the use of chemical weapons everywhere, particularly in Syria, were crimes" that the security council can address, Mr Fabius said. "That is accepted."

The second was the Chapter 7 issue and France proposed using the same wording that is in the US-Russian agreement reached in Geneva, he said, "and this, too, has been accepted".

That agreement said the US and Russia agree that a security council resolution should provide for a regular review of Syria's implementation, "and in the event of non-compliance ... or any use of chemical weapons by anyone in Syria, the UN Security Council should impose measures under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter".

Mr Fabius said the third issue "is to say that there is accountability of people who have committed this sort of crime, and it is accepted".

Britain's UN ambassador Sir Mark Lyall Grant also reported progress last night.

"But there are still some differences," he said. "We hope to be able to iron them out, maybe even today, but certainly in the next few days."

A US official said the two sides were "very, very close" and the US "fully expects to have a resolution by the end of the week".

Work on the UN resolution is going on at the same time as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body that will be in charge of securing and destroying the arms, is working on its own document to lay out its exact duties. The UN resolution will include the text of the OPCW's declaration and make it legally binding - so the OPCW must act first.

The security council is scheduled to meet today and tomorrow, with many ministers attending the UN General Assembly present, and diplomats had hoped to be able to approve the Syria resolution this week.

But a UN diplomat said the executive board of the OPCW was not likely to meet before Sunday, which means that security council adoption of the resolution probably will not take place until next week.

Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu called Syria's decision to abandon its chemical weapons "promising" but stressed that the elimination of chemical weapons was not a solution to the Syrian conflict, where most people have been killed by other weapons including air bombardment, artillery, tanks and snipers.

AP

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