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- Chemistry between them: Russia has lost its seat on the OPCW executive board to three countries
Chemistry between them: Russia has lost its seat on the OPCW executive board to three countries
Russia has lost its seat in the executive board of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) due to the fact that the United States, the United Kingdom and France forced member states to vote against the Russian Federation. Vladimir Tarabrin, Russia's ambassador to the Netherlands and our permanent representative to the OPCW, told Izvestia. According to him, despite such pressure, Russia will remain a member of the organization in order to prevent the states and their allies from finally "privatizing" the structure. It is necessary to maintain membership in the OPCW, as well as in other international organizations, as it gives Moscow an opportunity to convey to the leadership of other states an alternative point of view on pressing issues on the world agenda.
The OPCW voted against Russia
The deprivation of Russia's seat on the executive board of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for 2025-2027 is the result of unprecedented pressure on the member states by the United States and other Western countries during the vote held in late November at the 29th OPCW conference in The Hague, Russian Ambassador to the Netherlands and permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the organization Vladimir Tarabrin told Izvestia. He specified that an active campaign "to prevent Russia's re-election to the OPCW executive council was conducted directly by the United States, Great Britain, France and the European Union".
- Western countries organized individual and collective demarches and visited the diplomatic missions and foreign ministries of the participating states more than once. They persuaded and sometimes forced (we know this for a fact) to vote for the Czech Republic and North Macedonia, sponsored trips and stays in The Hague for representatives of small island states. Some ambassadors in conversation with me characterized the desire to prevent Russia's membership in the Executive Council with the word "obsession"," reported Vladimir Tarabrin.
In the end, Russia won 56 votes, while the Czech Republic and North Macedonia received 128 and 86 votes, respectively, which gave these countries two seats on the body from the Eastern European group. According to Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN Disarmament Commission, the OPCW members' vote in favor of North Macedonia, which has no weight whatsoever in chemical weapons matters, looks particularly absurd.
- These two countries are just there to vote for whatever they are told. This is another attempt to isolate Russia. Membership in the executive council still gave us the opportunity to conduct inspections and initiate all sorts of inquiries," he explained to Izvestia.
At the same time, the Permanent Mission believes that 56 votes is a good indicator in a situation where the United States and its allies are openly pursuing a course to oust Russia from all international organizations. In this regard, the result of the vote shows that Russia enjoys "significant support from independently thinking states" on the Hague platform, said Vladimir Tarabrin.
Russia, however, assumes that fundamentally nothing changes in the plan - it not only remains a full member of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, but also retains the status of observer in the Executive Council, which allows to publicly convey the Russian position on all relevant issues on the agenda of the OPCW and make statements.
In addition, Russia retains the right to vote in the highest governing body of the OPCW - the Conference of States Parties.
- We will continue to debunk the cases fabricated by the United States of America and its henchmen against the governments of undesirable States. In particular, we intend to continue to inform the States Parties to the CWC and provide evidence of the use by the AFU of various types of toxic chemicals and chemical riot control agents against civilians, Russian officials and military personnel," the Russian diplomat added.
Use of chemical weapons in Ukraine
Meanwhile, the issue of the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine is extremely acute, given how actively they are used by the AFU. On December 2, Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large for crimes of the Kiev regime of the Russian Foreign Ministry, pointed out the facts of mass use of chemical substances produced both in Ukraine and in the West. According to him, more than 400 facts of the use of such weapons were confirmed only last summer. Among the substances used by Kyiv are hydrocyanic acid, chloropicrin and other chemicals. There are also numerous facts of the artisanal production of toxic substances in Ukraine.
In late August, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian Armed Forces, Igor Kirillov, also spoke about the repeated use of chemical weapons. He reported, in particular, the discovery of manuals on the use of chemical munitions using Western-style artillery systems at the positions left by the Ukrainian armed forces.
Paradoxically, the United States, the country that most of all seeks to oust Russia from the OPCW, remains today the main supplier of toxic substances to Ukraine. The Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation has repeatedly recorded cases of the use by the Ukrainian armed forces of chemicals with a temporarily disabling effect, such as Bi-Zet, CS, and Ci-Ar, as well as Teren-6 hand grenades loaded with irritant chemicals.
Moreover, as Izvestia was previously told by the Russian post mission to the OPCW, in the course of local conflicts in the Middle East, chemical munitions are periodically resurfaced that are similar to those that the US and UK assured their experts had destroyed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009. However, this is not surprising, since the destruction of these munitions took place without proper verification by the OPCW.
Russia will continue its work in the OPCW
Despite the fact that the OPCW prefers to ignore the Russian side's reports on Ukraine's use of chemical weapons, Moscow believes it is necessary to remain a member of the OPCW in order to prevent a narrow group of Western states led by the United States from "privatizing" the organization.
- We intend to make every possible effort to prevent the CWC from finally turning into an obedient tool for promoting the geopolitical ambitions of Western countries and, on the contrary, to restore its independent technical status, where the principles of mutual respect for the interests of all member States without exception and consensus decision-making prevail. The full, without exceptions, implementation of Articles X (assistance and protection) and XI (economic and technical development) also remains one of our priorities," the Russian diplomat said.
According to Sergei Ordzhonikidze, former UN Deputy Secretary General and former Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, participation in the OPCW will in any case help the Russian Federation to achieve its goals.
- It will make it possible to convey an alternative point of view and, ideally, to achieve the necessary decisions that would be in our interests. We must admit that in certain cases the West manages to oust us from international organizations, but we must resist this. The U.S. knows how to work with its allies, either by exerting economic and political pressure on them or by promising them benefits. The choice of the Czech Republic and North Macedonia is in the spirit of the West, which often nominates candidates who have no position of their own and are oriented towards the United States," he added.
Ultimately, the OPCW is not only concerned with the destruction of chemical weapons. Among other things, it is a structure for controlling the circulation of sensitive chemicals, especially those that may be categorized as dual-use. The Permanent Mission reminds us that the organization also plays an important role in promoting the economic and technological development of States in the area of the use of peaceful chemistry for national economic purposes, including medicine, pharmacology and high technology.
- Membership of the CWC and participation in the work of the OPCW meet not only Russia's political but also its economic interests.
Therefore, any decision should not be emotional, but extremely balanced, every imprudent step can lead to serious consequences that will affect not only Russia's international image, but also the welfare of our citizens, the strengthening of our country's defense capability, the development of the chemical industry, pharmaceuticals, pharmacology, fertilizer production, import and export operations, - explained the Russian Permanent Representative to the organization.
Therefore, the potential of such participation should be used to the maximum in order to comply with international law, the legitimate interests of the Russian Federation and other Parties to the CWC, summarized Vladimir Tarabrin.
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