BAN KI-MOON TO PRESENT CHEMICAL WEAPONS REPORT ON SYRIA

        New York, 10 Dhulqo’dah 1434/16 September 2013 (MINA) – The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will present on Monday the findings of a report on chemical weapons in Syria that could renew pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

        Ban has already revealed that he expects the report by a U.N. investigation team to give “overwhelming” confirmation that arms were used in an attack near Damascus on August 21 in which hundreds died.

       While the U.N. team is not allowed to say who carried out the attack, diplomats say the detail will give a clearer picture to who is responsible, while Western and Arab states continue to place blame on Assad’s forces.

       Ban will present the report to the U.N. Security Council at 11:15a.m. (1515 GMT).

       The report’s findings come after a U.S.-Russian deal this week which stipulates Syria’s chemical stockpile be dismantled, Al Arabiya reported as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)

World leaders, including Syria, have welcomed the deal.

         On Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed what he called attempts to “retouch” the U.N. report. Syria’s U.N. envoy, Bashar Jaafari, has also said his government will not accept a “politicized” report.

        “Russia, the Americans, all sides, have been putting on pressure over this report,” a U.N. official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Ban’s office has agonized over every word. The message has to be how serious this attack was but also support the Russia-U.S. initiative.”

‘Victory’ for Syria

         The submission of the inspectors’ report came just hours after a Syrian minister declared a joint US-Russian plan to remove Syria’s chemical weapons a “victory” that averts war.

         “On one hand, it helps the Syrians emerge from the crisis and on the other it has allowed for averting war against Syria,” Ali Haidar, minister of state for National Reconciliation, told Russian news agency Ria Novosti on Sunday.

         “It’s a victory for Syria that was achieved thanks to our Russian friends.”

          Syria said it will commit to the plan to eradicate its chemical weapons once it has UN approval, Omran al-Zoubi, Syria’s information minister, told ITN on Sunday, adding that the regime had already begun preparing relevant documents.

          “Syria is committing itself to whatever comes from the UN,” he said.

         “We accept the Russian plan to get rid of our chemical weapons. In fact we’ve started preparing our list.”

         His remarks came after John Kerry, US secretary of state, met Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, to brief him on the plan to eradicate the chemical weapons.

         Kerry came out of the talks with a word of warning for Syria.

        “The threat of force remains, the threat is real,” he said at a joint news conference in Jerusalem with Netanyahu.

         The US is seeking to bolster international support for the agreement signed in Geneva, Switzerland, on Saturday, which demands action from Syria within days.

        The plan to dismantle and destroy Syria’s chemical arms stockpile – believed to be one of the largest in the world – by mid-2014 was reached over three days of talks in Geneva between Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

        It gives Assad a week to hand over details of his regime’s arsenal of the internationally banned arms in order to avert unspecified sanctions and the threat of US-led military strikes.

        It also specifies there must be immediate access for arms control experts and that inspections of what the US says is about 45 sites linked to the Syrian chemical weapons programme must be completed by November.

        The deal won the backing of China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, which like Russia has vetoed several UN resolutions on Syria.

        “This agreement will enable tensions in Syria to be eased,” Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister, told his visiting French counterpart Laurent Fabius, who will meet Lavrov on Tuesday in Moscow.

        It was also welcomed by Guido Westerwelle, German foreign minister, who cautioned: “It is important, however, that it be put into practice.”

‘Political solution’

         Nabil El-Araby, Arab League chief, called the deal “a step closer to a political solution” to the civil war in Syria that has cost more than 110,000 lives since March 2011.

        In advance of Kerry’s talks with the leader of Syria’s neighbour Israel, Netanyahu said he hoped the accord would see the complete destruction of the Damascus regime’s chemical weapons.

       The Syrian rebels fighting to topple Assad have rejected the deal, warning it would not halt the conflict.

       “Are we Syrians supposed to wait until mid-2014, to continue being killed every day and to accept [the deal] just because the chemical arms will be destroyed in 2014?” asked Free Syrian Army chief General Selim Idriss.

       Experts said the deal would be difficult – if not impossible – to implement.

       From Sweden, Tilman Bruck, director of the Stockholm International Peace Institute, said he believed the deal could work.

      “There is a real chance that this will succeed. At the same time it will not achieve regime change, and that is of course what the West had contemplated. So from that point of view it is not a very ambitious goal but still a step in the right direction.”(T/P04/E1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)