Brussels, 21/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - France, the United Kingdom and the United States will ask United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send a fact-finding mission to Syria to investigate the charges of the use of chemical weapons, diplomats announced on 20 March. “It will aim to conduct an investigation on the whole of the territory to shed light on all the allegations coming from Damascus and the opposition”, said Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations Gérard Araud (our translation). He stated that the information that France, the UK and the USA currently have available do not allow the allegations to be confirmed. The opposition and the regime each accuse the other of having used chemical weapons.
According to a diplomatic source who met a small group of journalists on 15 March, “there is quite a lot of presumption about small-scale use of chemical weapons (by the regime)”. The source said that this means that it is not “a village that has been gassed”, wondering if these are tests before more wide-scale action.
The Syrian regime, supported by Russia, wants the investigation just to focus on accusations against the opposition. It filed an official request on 20 March. (CG/transl.fl)