Сирийская Арабская Республика
Remarks by Russia's Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Alexander Shulgin at a briefing at the OPCW attended by residents of Douma (SAR), The Hague, April 26, 2018
Colleagues,
First, I would like to thank the representatives of Chemical Weapons Convention member states, both acting members of the OPCW Executive Council and observer states, for accepting the invitation to this briefing.
We have arranged it together with our Syrian colleagues to revisit the April 7 events in the city of Douma that became a harbinger for a missile strike by the United States, Great Britain and France at the Syrian Arab Republic.
Syrian citizens from Douma are here with us today. They came to The Hague on purpose – to tell you what really happened in Douma on April 7.
The provocation disguised as a chemical weapons attack did not come as a surprise for us or for the Syrian government. Syria's Deputy Permanent Representative to the OPCW Dr. Ghassan Obeid, who is present here, can tell you how many notes the Syrian side sent to the OPCW Technical Secretariat in this regard. Dr Obeid warned of this stove-piping when he spoke at the 87th session of the OPCW Executive Council back in the middle of March. The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin also made a corresponding statement during a news conference on April 4, following the trilateral Russia-Iran-Turkey summit in Ankara.
Unfortunately, our concerns came true – literally one day before the government troops took full control of Douma, an incident occurred there. The Western countries rushed to present it as yet another atrocity by the Syrian authorities: the use of chemical weapons against their own people. For us and for many sober-minded people this became another confirmation of the sinister plots by the enemies of the legitimate government of the SAR.
As you know, any instance of chemical weapons use must be considered by the experts of the specialised organisation – the OPCW. Director-General of the OPCW Technical Secretariat Dr Ahmet Uzumcu – and we give him credit for that – promptly responded to our joint request with Syria by deciding to send a group of experienced experts to the Syrian Arab Republic.
Common sense suggested that OPCW professionals should have a chance to give an authoritative voice, to check reports on the incident in Douma. However, the United States, Great Britain and France, without waiting even for the start of the OPCW inspectors’ work, claimed offhand that everything was clear to them – Bashar al-Assad government’s guilt was beyond doubt. And along the way allegations were laid against Russia in conniving to the most base instincts of the Syrian president who allegedly poisons his own people with toxic gas.
The United States, Great Britain and France pretend to be guardians of the holy principles of international law whereas in fact they ignore international standards and show disrespect for the OPCW. There is no other explanation for their stubborn desire to get even with Bashar al-Assad despite reports on the arrival of the OPCW inspectors in Damascus on the morning of April 14. Before long, the OPCW Technical Secretariat personnel could have been hit by the missile strikes.
A widely spun video shot by the notorious White Helmets with heartbreaking scenes of dying children, the suffocating victims of the poisoning, became practically the key argument in favour of “punishing” the Syrian authorities.
After this fake report was posted, the big propaganda machine of the three Western countries was set in motion. They proceeded in the same way they did following last year’s similar incident in Khan Shaykhun. Back then, the US Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley showed photos of “little martyrs,” the alleged sarin victims, to the UN Security Council members. They say those photos terrified US President Donald Trump who immediately ordered the launch of 59 cruise missiles at the Shayrat Airbase. And now Ambassador Nikki Haley, judging by her remarks at the UNSC meeting on April 9, was again about to show photos, but then, according to her, changed her mind – she said it was hard to count on an awakening conscience among the Russians since they are complicit in this crime, they have not complied with their commitments on the chemical disarmament of Syria and have allowed Bashar al-Assad to keep his secret chemical arsenal.
That said, US representatives made reference to information from social media and a video made by the notorious White Helmets.
Today, we can prove that the White Helmets video was a crude staging. Consequently, our Western partners’ reference to that material as evidence of a chemical attack is totally groundless.
We will show this on the big screen and review what our US, British and French colleagues presented to us as a reason for their barbaric act – aggression against a sovereign state, a member of the UN and the OPCW.
* * *
So, today Chemical Weapons Convention member states have been shown convincing evidence of a crude provocation staged in Douma on April 7 by the White Helmets, a pseudo humanitarian non-governmental organisation which is fed by Western tax payers, mostly from the UK, the US and also from the Netherlands.
Our Western partners are accusing us, Russia, of waging information wars, of spreading fake news. But we have seen today that the United States and their allies are guilty of this.
This fabricated video (the pseudo humanitarian group, the White Helmets, is unlikely to have created this independently, without informing their Western sponsors) has far-reaching consequences. Probably, for the first time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the world has approached the red line beyond which is the threat of direct military confrontation between the United States and Russia. I’d like to say: Turn away from that road, don’t commit provocations fraught with unpredictable consequences. We cannot allow the Cold War, the new version of which we are witnessing today, to turn into a “hot” war.
The proper conclusions must be sought. We must give up confrontation and find solutions to emerging problems, given mutual respect and account of each other’s lawful interests, and based on international law. Our future, the future of our children and grandchildren depend on this.
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