UNITED NATIONS, March 10. /TASS/. Russia hopes that Director General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Fernando Arias will soon speak at the United Nations Security Council on Syria’s chemical dossier, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyansky said on Thursday.
"We hope that the OPCW director general will find time in his allegedly busy immediate schedule to brief the [UN Security] Council and answer all the questions asked by the Russian delegation earlier," he said. "Otherwise, our suspicion that the Technical Secretariat has something to hide will only grow stronger."
According to the Russian diplomat, the Security Council’s schedule for the discussion of the Syrian dossier, in particular its chemical aspects, is absolutely artificial. "There is absolutely nothing to discuss so frequently. It is mere ploughing the sands," he said. "We have repeatedly suggested this schedule be adjusted to make it possible for the Security Council to work more efficiently on this topic. The Chinese delegation has also repeatedly called for it. But our proposals were not supported by Western colleagues."
Russia regrets that the concept of a "meeting for the sake of a meeting" is more important for the West than a substantive discussion at the Security Council, Polyansky stressed, adding that such an approach only undermines the UN Security Council’s authority.
He said that Russia is concerned over the politicization of the OPCW’s activities, violation of the procedures envisaged by the Chemical Weapons Convention by the organization’s secretariat, fact twisting in the report of the fact-finding mission in Syria’s Douma. Moreover, the organization is ignoring evidence of the use of chemical weapons by terrorists and is unwilling to change the current deplorable situation, he added.