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U.N. Says Syria Must Quicken Chemical Arms Purge Syrian City to Receive Aid, Officials Say
(about 7 hours later)
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations diplomat coordinating the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria said Thursday that the government of President Bashar al-Assad needed to “pick up the pace,” but she stopped short of blaming the Syrian authorities for the missed deadlines in exporting the most deadly chemical materials. WASHINGTON — The Syrian government appeared to take a small step to ease the plight of civilians by agreeing to provide humanitarian access to the city of Homs, which has been under siege for over a year, American and United Nations officials said on Thursday.
The diplomat, Sigrid Kaag, told reporters after privately briefing the Security Council: “Delays are not insurmountable.” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said that the agreement was supposed to begin on Friday and was to include a “local humanitarian pause” in the fighting.
The effort to destroy the chemical arsenal, which involves exporting 1,200 tons of toxic materials including components for mustard gas and sarin nerve agent, is well behind schedule, with two deadlines missed already. Concern is now growing that the final deadline of June 30 for eradication of the entire arsenal could be missed as well. Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the United Nations secretary general, said that food, medicine and other aid supplies were on hand at the outskirts of Homs and ready to be moved “as soon as the green light was given by the parties for safe passage.”
Ms. Kaag declined to specify why deadlines had been missed, except to cite abiding security risks. She said the final deadline could be met. Yet even as the State Department welcomed reports by Syria’s state media that a deal had been reached, American officials expressed concern that President Bashar al-Assad might not follow through or might abuse the terms of the agreement.
Asked if Syria was deliberately stalling, she said: “No, I don’t think so,” adding, “Delays have a reason.” About 2,500 Syrians are believed to be trapped in the old city of Homs, and about 500 to 700 of them want to be evacuated, including 80 who are said to be injured, according to Western diplomats.
The Security Council issued a statement expressing concern about “the slow pace” of the work and said the Syrian government had sufficient materials and equipment to carry out the elimination of its chemical weapons arsenal, despite the nearly three-year-old civil war raging in the country. The Assad government has not said how much food, medicine or other assistance from international relief organizations can be delivered or for how long.
The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly I. Churkin, suggested earlier in the week that the United States was partly to blame for the delay, saying the American ship on which some of the chemicals are to be rendered harmless had not arrived yet in the Mediterranean Sea. But Mr. Churkin expressed confidence that the project would be “accomplished in a timely manner.” Nor has the government offered any assurances about what would happen to the people who are evacuated. The Syrian opposition had asked that injured people who were evacuated be exempt from detention and be allowed to travel to hospitals in other Middle Eastern nations, diplomats said, adding that the government rejected that request.
“Those chemicals are going to be destroyed,” he said. Samantha Power, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said, “We would note that in Moadamiyeh, where an evacuation was undertaken not long ago, there are still men who were evacuated as part of that official evacuation who, in our view anyway, have not been heard from since.”
The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, rejected Mr. Churkin’s criticism on Thursday, telling reporters that the delays had nothing to do with the impending arrival of the American ship, the Cape Ray. Ms. Power urged that a system be established to “ascertain the welfare” of any evacuees in Homs. But it was not clear if such procedures would be put in place or whether international observers would be present.
“It’s time for the Assad government to stop its foot-dragging, establish a transportation plan, and stick to it,” she said. In discussing the agreement, diplomats said that they were responding to official Syria news media reports and reports from opposition officials, adding that the United Nations had yet to receive a text of the agreement.
The new concern over Syria’s chemical weapons, which Mr. Assad committed to destroy in an agreement reached four months ago, was just one of the Syria issues confronting the United Nations on Thursday. Another was the frustrated effort to send emergency food and medicine into besieged areas of the country, including the Old City section of Homs, which government forces have surrounded. A broader problem is that the agreement covers only a fraction of the 200,000 to 240,000 people who are cut off from food and medicine in areas that have been blocked by Mr. Assad’s forces — a practice that the United States and its partners have described as a “starve or surrender” strategy. Security Council members circulated a draft resolution that would compel the warring parties to let aid into the country — in effect, reiterating a statement issued by the Council late last year. Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed the need for a resolution.
The United Nations issued a somewhat vague confirmation that the government had reached an agreement with United Nations relief officials to allow the aid into Homs. Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said the supplies were at the outskirts of the city and ready to be moved “as soon as the green light was given by the parties for safe passage.” Frederic C. Hof, a former State Department official, said of the deal on Homs: “Seeing is believing.” He added: “If lives are saved in this case, great. But there’s no substitute for unchallenged U.N. access everywhere in Syria.”
The announcement came as some members of the Security Council were resurrecting efforts to draft a resolution compelling the warring parties to let aid into the country. Mr. Churkin, of Russia, has denied that there is a need for a resolution. The reports of a deal came as the Security Council issued a statement expressing concern about “the slow pace” of the Syrian government’s efforts to fulfill the agreement that would eliminate its chemical arsenal.
Ms. Power has said she supports the need for a resolution, though she has not explained whether the United States is ready to push for a binding measure. American officials have complained that Syria is stalling and that only 4 percent of Syria’s most dangerous chemical agents and precursor chemicals had been taken by the government to the port of Latakia to be shipped for destruction.
“It is critical the Security Council move forward in order to signal to the regime that humanitarian access is not optional — it is required, and we are looking at a range of options,” she said. But the United Nations diplomat who is coordinating the distribution of Syria’s chemical arsenal, Sigrid Kaag, told reporters on Thursday the delay was not deliberate and was “not insurmountable.”
In Syria, the civil war continued to rage. After days of intensive air bombardment of the city of Aleppo, a coalition of Syrian Islamist rebel groups attacked the city’s central prison, antigovernment activists said.
The attack began at an entrance to the prison with a suicide car bombing by a fighter from the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, the Nusra Front, activists said. While clashes near the prison continued into the night, it was unclear how much of the complex the rebels had seized and whether they had freed any of the thousands of prisoners believed to be inside.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict from Britain through a network of contacts in Syria, said that rebels had seized parts of the prison and freed hundreds of prisoners amid clashes with government forces. At least 20 government soldiers, 16 rebels and five prisoners were killed, the Observatory said.
A Nusra Front leader, known as Seif Alla al-Shichani because of his Chechen origin, was one of the dead, according to the Observatory report.
The state news agency, SANA, said government forces had repelled an attack on the prison by “armed terrorist gangs,” the government term for the rebels.