THE UNITED NATIONS, September 27. /TASS/. The Netherlands backs the decision to attribute the right to identify those guilty in chemical weapons attacks to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Wednesday at a session of the United Nations Security Council on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"Because of the stalemate in this body, we have tasked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate and identify those responsible for the use of these weapons," he said. "We cannot sit back. We have to speak up, take action and firmly support the OPCW, so that perpetrators can be brought to justice. And we need to do this together."

"The repeated use of chemical weapons is deeply alarming. It causes terrible human suffering and erodes the established international norm," Rutte said. "There should be no impunity for any use of chemical weapons. Not for the large-scale attacks in Syria nor for the individual attacks in Malaysia and the UK. The same goes for the possible use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime in Idlib."

"All of us, both within and outside this Council, bear a responsibility," he added.

The decision on giving the OPCW attributive functions was made during the Special Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in The Hague on June 26-27. Russia opposed the idea of giving the organization the right to punish those behind chemical attacks, calling this decision illegitimate.