Syria stripped of rights at chemical weapons watchdog

The Hague: The global chemical weapons watchdog agreed on Wednesday to strip Syria of its voting rights in an unprecedented punishment after a probe blamed Damascus for poison gas attacks.

Syria will also be banned from holding any offices at the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) over its repeated use of toxic arms against civilians. A two-thirds majority of the OPCW’s member states voted in favour of the sanctions, the first time they have been meted out to any country in the agency’s quarter-century history.

The measures are in response to an OPCW investigation last year that found the Syrian air force had used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine gas in three attacks on the village of Lataminah in 2017.

"The member states of the OPCW have sent a strong message: repeated use of chemical weapons by Syria is unacceptable for the international community," the French delegation to the watchdog said.

Britain said it was a "vital step to maintain the credibility of the Chemical Weapons Convention". Syria and its ally Russia have consistently denied that Damascus has used chemical weapons during the 10-year civil war, arguing that the watchdog has become politicised by the West.

France introduced a motion on behalf of 46 countries also including Britain and the United States to deprive Syria of "rights and privileges" over the 2017 attacks and its failure to declare its chemical weapons.

Eighty-seven countries voted in favour of the motion, 15 including Syria, Russia, China and Iran voted against, and 34 abstained, OPCW officials said. "In light of this result the draft resolution is adopted," said Jose Antonio Zabalgoitia Trejo, the chairman of the meeting of the OPCW’s member states.

Syria’s rights will remain suspended until member states decide that Damascus has fully declared all of its chemical weapons and weapons-making facilities, the motion says.