U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution requiring Syria to give up its chemical weapons.
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution requiring Syria to give up its chemical weapons.
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Security Council Adopts Resolution On Syria
The language of the resolution adopted September 27 was hammered out during days of negotiations by the United States, Russia and the other permanent members of the Security Council, who worked on a Security Council response to the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons on August 21st that killed 1400 people.
The resolution is legally binding and stipulates that if Syria does not comply with its terms, the matter will be referred to the Security Council which can “impose measures under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.” The resolution says that “the use of chemical weapons anywhere constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”
Secretary of State John Kerry called the resolution “strong, enforceable,[and] precedent-setting.”
ACT: “The United Nations Security Council has demonstrated that diplomacy can be so powerful, it can peacefully defuse the worst weapons of war.”
This is the first time, Secretary Kerry said, that a Security Council resolution sought to eliminate entirely a nation’s chemical weapons capability.
According to a deadline set by the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons should be completed in the first half of 2014. Secretary Kerry says Syria’s full compliance is essential:
ACT: “The Security Council has shown that when we put aside politics for the common good, we are still capable of doing big things. Provided this resolution is fully implemented, we will have eliminated one of the largest chemical weapons programs on earth from one of the most volatile places on earth.”
In an interview at the United Nations, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Thomas Countryman said that the success of the diplomatic effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons depends on whether the Government of Syria “will fully meet its obligations to provide transparency, access and security to [the] monitoring and destruction effort:”
ACT: “And in that regard, we consider the influence of the Russian Federation and its commitment to hold Syria to those obligations to be very important.”
“We are planning for success,” said Assistant Secretary Countryman. “I firmly believe when the Russian Federation and the United States share a communal determination to accomplish something, and they have the kind of support from the whole world we see right now, we should expect and prepare for success.”
