America and Allies Urge RI Press Syria on Chemical Weapons

chicangel-hyeri (45)in #news • 7 years ago

@chicangel-hyeri

The United States, Britain and France are calling on Indonesia to play a stronger and bigger role to pressure Syria suspected of launching a chemical weapons attack on its own in Douma, East Ghouta.

The request was disclosed by British Ambassador to Indonesia Moazzam Malik after meeting Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi along with US Ambassador Joseph R Donovan and French Ambassador Jean-Charles Berthonnet in the Foreign Ministry on Thursday (19/4).

"We ask Indonesia to be able to contribute further and join us to urge the Assad regime to be responsible for the misuse of chemical weapons against its own citizens," Moazam said after attending a closed meeting with the Indonesian Foreign Minister to the media.

Malik said that as one of the member countries of the Organization of Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Indonesia has an important role related to international law enforcement about the use of chemical weapons.

"Indonesia is also soon joining as one of the OPCW executive committees, so we also want Indonesia to join other countries in the world to pressure Syria and Russia to give access to conduct investigations into Douma," he continued.

On the occasion, Malik also confirmed the combined attack of Britain, US and France last week to Syria was not done to overthrow President Bashar Al-Assad.

Malik said the air strikes on Saturday (14/4) were aimed at destroying Syria's military and chemical weapons sites.
"This joint attack targeted the military and weapons sites in order to make Syria deterrent and not use any more chemical weapons ... We do not want to overthrow the regime or interfere in civil conflict in Syria".

Meanwhile, Donovan also confirmed that the air strikes of the three countries against Syria have fulfilled the legal basis as it is intended to stop the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria.

Donovan said over the past few weeks his side continues to get a series of evidence such as footage of what happened to Douma including the number of victims killed by the chemical gas attack.

source

"In the meeting with Mrs. Retno, the three of us also explained the real evidence of a chemical attack had occurred and we also exchanged our legal opinion about the chemical weapons attack in Syria," Donovan said.

According to the US ambassador, all the dialogue and diplomatic efforts have been tried by the three countries to stop the Syrian action but still not enough to pressure Assad to stop the use of chemical weapons.

We have used diplomatic and economic means to avoid the current situation [military response], but it is also important to remember that Syria has ratified the chemical weapons convention in 2013 and therefore has the obligation to disarm all of its chemical weapons."

Russia guarantees Syria in that respect. we have not seen the commitment of both countries to destroy chemical weapons in Syria".

Syria and its ally Russia denies allegations of the United States and its allied countries over chemical weapons attacks in Douma, East Ghouta. Russia even signaled that the US - backed Syrian opposition, engineered the attack because it has been pressured by government troops President Bashar Al - Assad. The position of Indonesia is concerned over the escalation in Syria and called on all parties to refrain.