SYRIA CRISIS - UN unanimously adopts Syria arms resolution

UN unanimously adopts Syria arms resolution

World's chemical weapons watchdog OPCW approves disarmament plan, paving  the way for Security Council ballot. Last Modified: 28 Sep 2013 00:58

For the first time, the council has endorsed a roadmap for a political transition in Syria [AFP]

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. The vote late on Friday was the first resolution passed on the Syrian conflict since it began in March 2011, after Russia and China had previously vetoed three Western-backed resolutions pressuring President Bashar Assad's regime to end the violence. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council immediately after the vote he aimed for a Syria peace conference in November. "Today's historic resolution is the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time," Ban said. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' (OPCW) in The Hague, the world's chemical weapons watchdog, had earlier approved the disarmament plan for Syria that paved the way for the UN vote. For the first time, the council endorsed the roadmap for a political transition in Syria adopted by key nations in June 2012 and called for an international conference to be convened "as soon as possible'' to implement it. The resolution calls for consequences if Syria fails to comply, but those will depend on the council passing another resolution in the event of non-compliance. OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said after meeting a last-moment unexpected delay at the Executive Council had been met and at 12.38 (2238 GMT) the watchdog had adopted a decision on an accelerated programme by the OPCW to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. US Secretary of State John Kerry has called the OPCW document the "rules and regulations" of Syria's chemical disarmament to be enshrined in the UN  resolution that is to be voted on at 0000 GMT Saturday. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said after the vote the UN Security Council would be prepared to take punitive steps in the event of confirmed violations of a resolution demanding the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. "The United Nations Security Council ... will stand ready to take action under Chapter VII of the charter, quite clearly," Lavrov said, in reference to the part of the UN charter covering the council's power to enforce its decisions with sanctions or military force. However, James Bays, Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor, said it was significant that Lavrov had pointed out  that the resolution passed in the UN did not threaten the use of force. "It would trigger another resolution  that would threaten the use of force," Bays said. Syria pledge Bays said the vote paved the way for the start of the work for the chemical weapons inspectors. "The big question then is whether Syria will comply," he said. Bays earlier put the point to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem. "We will commit because we are determined to go forward in the respect of [the agreement of] destroying the chemical weapons," Muallem told Bays at the UN headquarters in New York. OPCW spokesman Luhan said that a there was a "very minor change" to a draft document seen by AFP news agency and "the timetable was not disturbed." The draft OPCW document said the watchdog would start inspections no later  than October 1 and eliminate all of Syria's chemical weapons by mid-2014.