US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, responded on Tuesday to reports of chlorine gas being used by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's army against civilians in Eastern Ghouta.
In a statement, Haley said that the reports of chlorine gas being used by the Syrian regime "are yet another demonstration of its blatant disregard for international law and cruel indifference for the lives of its own people."
In November, Russia vetoed the renewal of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), the independent, impartial, technical group unanimously created by the UN Security Council to investigate the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria and identify those responsible.
“When Russia killed the JIM, they sent a dangerous message to the world – one that not only said chemical weapons use is acceptable but also that those who use chemical weapons don’t need to be identified or held accountable. If these reports are true, this attack in Syria should weigh heavily on their conscience. The United States will never stop fighting for the innocent Syrian children, women, and men who have become victims of their own government and those who continue to prop it up,” Haley said.
At a UN Security Council meeting on chemical weapons use in Syria, Haley said, “We know that for years Russia has looked the other way while their Syrian friends use these despicable weapons of war,” Haley said. “Russia is complicit in the Assad regime’s atrocities. Will the Russian Federation say anything at all today about the suffering caused by Assad’s barbaric tactics? Will they hold Assad to account? Of course not. They never do.”
“Here’s the bottom line. The Security Council gave the Joint Investigative Mechanism a mandate to tell us who used chemical weapons in Syria. When investigators found ISIS to be responsible, Russia was fine. When the investigators found that the Assad regime used them, Russia tried to find any excuse to poke holes in the investigation and threw up smoke to question the findings. But that is not how independent investigations work. You don’t get to question the findings when they don’t go your way. READ MORE
