The United Nations hopes that a team investigating allegations about the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war will deploy to the country as early as next week, UN diplomatic sources said yesterday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday named Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom to head the UN team.
The UN said last week it would investigate Syrian allegations that rebels used chemical arms in an attack near the northern city of Aleppo, though Western countries want a probe of two additional rebel claims about the use of such arms. The opposition says the Government carried out all three alleged chemical attacks.
Several UN diplomatic sources said on condition of anonymity that Ban hopes the team will arrive in Syria next week, though that may not be possible since the experts need to be assembled and approved and the investigation’s mandate clarified.
“Whenever they get there, it will be the earliest possible date for them to arrive,” a UN official said on condition of anonymity.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Syria has accepted Sellstrom as the head of the investigative team and that the logistics and composition of the team were still being worked out.
“Of course, we hope the Syrians don’t play games and prevent the team from accessing all sites of alleged chemical weapons incidents,” a Western diplomat said.
Nesirky said the United Nations was still speaking with Syria about access for the team.
“It is obvious that to do this work you need unfettered access and that is why the secretary-general has underscored that in his communications (with Syria),” Nesirky said.
Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told Reuters that Damascus had promised to provide Sellstrom’s mission with assistance. “The technicalities will be negotiated in Damascus during the establishment of the Memorandum of Understanding similar to what had happened for General (Robert) Mood’s Mission,” said Ja’afari, referring to the brief UN mission last year to observe a failed ceasefire. The inspection team will be composed of around eight to 10 experts, mostly chosen by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, UN sources said.
The World Health Organisation will also support the team. The OPCW oversees implementation of the Convention on Chemical Weapons, an international treaty aimed at eliminating such arms. Syria is a not a signatory.