Rare consensus

Finally, the US and Russia were able to agree on a resolution aimed at identifying the culprits responsible for the deployment of chemical weapons in Syria, including chlorine gas. 

Last Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted the resolution, which also tasked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with the establishment of an investigative panel for this purpose in coordination with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The resolution, which states that the panel will be given “full access” to all sites in Syria, and allowed to interview witnesses and collect materials, mandates the panel to “identify to the greatest extent feasible individuals, entities, groups or governments who were perpetrators, organisers, sponsors or otherwise involved in the use of chemicals as weapons”. 

In August 2013, hundreds of civilians died in a chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb, after which Syria agreed to a US-Russia plan to dismantle its chemical weapons network and join an international treaty banning their use.
So far, 1,300 metric tonnes of chemical stockpiles have been removed from Syria under the chemical disarmament agreement. 

But there have been several reports of chlorine gas attacks since then, confirmed by rights groups and Syrian doctors, with all fingers pointing to the Syrian regime as the probable culprit.

The US, the UK and France have repeatedly accused regime forces of carrying out chlorine gas attacks via barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, arguing that only the Syrian regime has helicopters. But Moscow insists that there is no concrete proof that Damascus carried out these attacks.

Once the responsible party is identified, Russia may still use its veto power to block any action against Syria out of loyalty and support to the regime.  

Besides, the investigation sanctioned under the newly adopted resolution can be expected to drag on for many months, and in any case requires the full support of all parties deploying forces on Syrian soil. 

Damascus is projected to extend very limited support and cooperation, rendering the probe an open-ended exercise.

Still, the fact that all the major powers on the Security Council voted unanimously on the resolution may lead to the creation of a new international environment conducive for the resolution of the Syrian crisis, which is now in its fifth year and has resulted in the death of nearly 250,000 Syrians and the displacement of almost 12 million.