Syria Introduces Resolution on Middle Eastern WMD-Free Zone

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — With just three days left to serve on the U.N. Security Council, Syria yesterday introduced a draft resolution calling on Middle Eastern countries East to create a region free of weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Dec. 15).

Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad said a Middle Eastern WMD-free zone “should be at the top of the agenda of the international community.” He added, “This is a very crucial issue in the Middle East, and I think once we achieve it, we shall have a further step in solving … complicated problems in a very sensitive region.”

With inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Iran and Libya determining the nuclear weapons capabilities of those countries, Mekdad said, “Recent interest shown by members of the Security Council … encouraged us to come to the council before we leave to put the issue [forward].”

The draft “emphasizes” the role of the council “in adopting a global approach to countering the spread of all [weapons of mass destruction] in the countries of the Middle East without exception” and calls on the states in the region to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. Some Arab states, including Syria, are not parties to all of the latter three conventions, but Israel is the only country in the region outside of the NPT. “It is applicable to everybody, but in fact Israel is the real [issue], whether we like it or not, because Israel has all these kinds of weapons,” said Mekdad.

The draft cites previous council and General Assembly resolutions and unanimous decisions from the review conferences of the NPT in 1995 and 2000 calling for negotiations for creating a Middle Eastern zone free of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.  The draft also asks Secretary General Kofi Annan to submit a report within one month upon implementation of the resolution.

Neither Mekdad nor Ambassador Stefan Tafrov of Bulgaria, the current president of the council, said whether they expected the council to take up the draft again before the end of the year.

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