Inspectors in Syria Find Traces of Banned Military Chemicals
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Version 0 of 1. International inspectors have found traces of banned toxic chemicals in at least three military locations in Syria, four diplomats and officials said, less than two years after President Bashar al-Assad agreed to dismantle the country’s chemical arsenal. Traces of sarin, a nerve agent, were found in drainage pipes and in artillery shells in two places, and traces of another banned toxin, ricin, were found in a third location, a scientific research center, according to a United Nations diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential reports from the inspectors. The discovery of the small amounts of banned materials, first reported by Reuters, comes as Syrian government forces are being accused of continuing to bombard insurgent-held areas with chlorine bombs. Taken together, the recent events raised troubling questions for international inspectors about whether Damascus was violating the terms of a deal brokered by Russia and the United States in 2013 that forestalled an American military strike. The United States and its allies held the Syrian government responsible for a series of chemical weapons attacks, including a deadly sarin attack near the capital, before that accord. A Western diplomat briefed on the findings by the inspectors from the global Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that while there was no clear evidence of new use or production of forbidden chemicals, “the strong suspicion is they are retaining stockpiles which are being held back.” “This, and the open defiance in using prohibited chlorine bombs, is indicative of bad faith from the beginning,” the diplomat said. A violation of the deal struck to eliminate Syria’s chemical arsenal would undermine President Obama’s single claim to policy success in Syria, where four years of war has displaced nearly half the country, killed more than 200,000 people and shown no sign of abating. It could also embarrass Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful military and diplomatic patron. Already there was mounting evidence that Mr. Assad’s forces had violated the terms of the international treaty banning use of chemical weapons — and signed as part of the deal facilitated by Washington and Moscow — by dropping jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas. While the Syrian government has denied using chlorine or any chemical as a weapon, only the government has access to the helicopters that witnesses say are being used, and rescue workers say the pace of such attacks has increased in some areas. Now, inspectors are trying to determine the significance of the new findings of small amounts of banned agents, which do not necessarily indicate a lingering weapons program and were described by some diplomats as being perhaps less troublesome than the charges that the Syrian government is dropping barrel bombs loaded with chlorine. The inspectors, whose last tour ended on April 3, are expected to seek answers from Syrian officials during a visit beginning Sunday. An investigation into both allegations could put even more pressure on Mr. Assad during a renewed push to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict that could lead to his removal from office. On Tuesday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful ally, met with Secretary of State John Kerry in Sochi, Russia, to discuss Syria, and Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, continued a new round of talks in Geneva. Both sets of talks are aimed at re-energizing the search for an elusive political solution. At the United Nations, the Security Council has been hamstrung on chemical weapons, as Syria’s allies contend that the allegations are part of a political campaign against Mr. Assad by Western governments, including the United States, that have called for his ouster. Evidence of chemical weapons remains a fraught issue for global public opinion more than a decade after false claims of an Iraqi chemical weapons program were used to justify the American invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein. The detection of traces of banned chemicals were revealed as the Security Council confronted the charges about the use of a more mundane chemical, chlorine, which is not a banned substance but whose use in weapons is forbidden under international law. Government opponents, doctors and rescue workers contend that Syrian forces are increasingly using chlorine in bombs dropped from aircraft. Inspectors found last year that chlorine had been used in battle in violation of international law. But with Syria’s ally Russia wielding a Security Council veto, the joint mission of the global monitoring organization with the United Nations was not mandated to investigate who had used it. In recent days, the United States has sought to establish a United Nations mission to determine who is responsible. As for the new discovery of traces of banned chemicals, it is not necessarily a ground for punitive action by the Security Council, officials said. There is no evidence that banned materials were used in weapons after Syria signed the treaty, or that Syria possesses sufficient quantities to use in future weapons. What is clear is that the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, the international group that enforces the chemical weapons convention, has sent its team of inspectors eight times to Syria. The body is still seeking to clarify gaps in the government’s required official declarations about the location and amounts of its toxic stockpiles and the nature and scope of activities at weapons sites. What steps the Security Council might take depend on what the monitoring organization’s inspectors conclude about why the traces were there. “To have some gaps in the initial declaration is quite common,” the diplomat said. “To have them persist after a year and a half I find a little odd. It should have been cleared up now.” At an executive council meeting of the international monitoring group on May 7 in The Hague, attendees were told that one or more facilities in Syria had not been inspected because the government said security problems prevented access, according to diplomats who attended. The United States ambassador to the organization, Robert Mikulak, told the group that there were “gaps and inconsistencies” in Syria’s declaration of its weapons, according to a copy of his speech. “Progress continues to be agonizingly slow in destroying all of the remaining chemical weapons facilities,” he said. He added: “It is the duty of this council — and of its technical secretariat — to ensure that the facts about use of chemical weapons are determined and made known. Silent toleration is not an acceptable option.” Two other United States officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the reports, confirmed the United Nations diplomat’s account that traces of two banned agents were used. A former United States official added that small amounts of banned agents might be less problematic than large amounts of chlorine. “Traces usually means just that — traces,” the official said of the other banned chemicals. A spokesman for the international monitoring organization in The Hague pointed out that the chemical weapons treaty, which Syria signed in October 2013, required Syria to declare the precise locations of facilities that were part of its chemical weapons program, as well as the nature and scope of the activities. The spokesman added that his colleagues were “continuing to work with the Syrian Arab Republic to clarify their declaration,” though he said he could not divulge details of the “operational verification matters” because of confidential provisions in the treaty. |