UNITED NATIONS, October 28. /TASS/. Russia disproves of the attempts to turn the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into a mechanism for the implementation of geopolitical interests of a narrow group of countries and will spare no effort to normalize its work, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Geneva office Andrei Belousov said on Wednesday.
"Quite a difficult situation has arisen in the OPCW. Once an authoritative international structure, where decisions were always taken on a consensus basis, it has split because of politicization, mandate erosion, deviation from the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Some states have actually reshaped the organization for the sake of their own selfish geopolitical interests," he said.
According to the Russian diplomat, the draft resolution of the UN General Assembly on the CWC is a vivid example of the politicization of the OPCW’s work. "Year after year, we keep on calling on its initiators to become to take the document seriously and take appropriate efforts to restore its consensus character," he said. "We have no illusions that it will not be an easy task but it is irresponsible to do nothing at all."
He noted that this year Russia’s calls were ignored again. "Consultations were only held on the draft resolution and principal proposals of the member states to adjust the text were not reckoned with," Belousov said. "We think it absolutely inadmissible to use politicized wordings with ungrounded accusations of some bona fide CWC member states. Notably, it doesn’t even call on the only state possessing chemical weapons - the United States - to complete the process of the destruction of its arsenals the soonest possible."
"We would like to stress that we are not ready to put up with the use of the OPCW as an instrument of political pressure and the implementation of geopolitical interests of a narrow group of nations," he emphasized. "Russia will continue to do its utmost in the interests of the restoration of the supremacy of international law, maintaining of the convention’s integrity and the normalization of the OPCW’s work.".