NEW YORK, October 11 (RIA Novosti) – Members of the UN Security Council on Thursday backed the UN chief’s initiative to establish a joint mission tasked with eliminating chemical weapons in Syria.
In a letter to the UN Security Council earlier this week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon suggested that a joint mission of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should be established in Syria. The mission will have a support base in Cyprus and would comprise some 100 personnel from both the OPCW and the UN.
UK Ambassador to the UN Mark Lyall Grant told reporters after the meeting that all member states supported the initiative during their closed-door meeting late on Thursday. He said a resolution is unnecessary as member states see the letter as a simpler and quicker way to voice their approval.
“All UNSC members back SG [Secretary General] proposals for joint UN/OPCW mission to oversee destruction of Syrian CW arsenal. Should be approved by letter soon,” the ambassador later wrote in his Twitter account.
The council’s current president, Azerbaijan’s permanent UN envoy Agshin Mehdiyev, said that a letter of approval will be sent soon.
Under the rules of procedure, the Security Council president will sign the document 24 hours later, or late on Friday.
International experts began eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons on Sunday in accordance with a US-Russian plan to seize and destroy the stockpiles that was approved in September 2013 by the OPCW and supported by a UN Security Council resolution.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during his visit to Brunei on Thursday that Moscow was satisfied with the current efforts to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria and the international team’s work “goes uninterrupted.”
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russian experts have arrived to Syria as part of international efforts to dismantle Syria’s chemical stockpile.
“Russian experts are already on site, and more will come in the future,” he said ahead of Thursday’s UN Security Council meeting.
