Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has reactivated the country’s permanent mission to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.
According to the state news agency SANA on Thursday, 20 November, the Foreign Ministry has appointed Mohamad Katoub as Syria’s permanent representative to the organisation.
The First Committee of the UN General Assembly had earlier adopted, with the support of 151 states, a resolution highlighting a phase of positive and advanced cooperation between Syria and the OPCW.
Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, said on 3 November that the Syrian delegation voted in favor of draft resolution “L62”, titled “Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction”, including its paragraphs relating to Syria.
Olabi stated in his address to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which deals with disarmament and international security, in New York, that the adoption of the draft resolution represents a qualitative step toward establishing the truth and doing justice to the Syrian people after years of disinformation and distortion of facts.
For its part, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said that the First Committee’s decision is an important step in the process of correcting the narrative about events in Syria, and reflects the international community’s commitment to acknowledging the facts after years of disinformation and neglect of the suffering of victims of chemical attacks.
Who is Mohamad Katoub?
Katoub previously served as chair of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and took part in research projects with the “Syria Impact Study” at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, where he focused on public health issues and rights-based advocacy.
He is considered an expert in advocacy and communications, with work focused on humanitarian policy, empowering civil society, protecting aid workers, and defending human rights in Syria and neighboring countries.
He has also worked extensively as a dentist in humanitarian relief, in establishing field hospitals, and in supporting local governance structures that have deteriorated since the start of the conflict in Syria, and continues to advise several non-governmental organizations.
Katoub holds a master’s degree in aerospace sciences and is currently pursuing studies in political science and international relations.
Syria explains the significance of the UN decision on banning chemical weapons
“Justice for the victims”
Ibrahim Olabi said that the adoption of international resolution “L62” represents a fundamental step toward doing justice to the Syrian people after long years of disinformation and attempts to smother the truth, especially regarding the use of chemical weapons in the country.
He stressed that the resolution enables Syria to “breathe again” at the international level and reflects broad support for its position, expressing gratitude to the countries that contributed to its adoption, foremost among them Poland, which took on the responsibility of continually submitting the draft in recent years and drawing attention to the challenges Syria faces.
Olabi noted that the resolution sets out and documents the suffering of the Syrian people from the scourge of chemical weapons, and fixes this reality historically. He called on the international community to support Syria’s efforts to address the chemical legacy of the former regime, protect Syrians and ensure their collective security, and strengthen international peace and security.
The Syrian delegation also praised the operative paragraphs in the resolution that reflect the country’s reality after 14 years of war, including provisions that welcome Syria’s recent positive cooperation with the OPCW, call for international support, welcome the Executive Council’s decisions on accelerated destruction, and acknowledge the historical and institutional context in which the chemical weapons program developed during the Assad era.
Syrian opening
Following the fall of the former Syrian regime, OPCW Director General Fernando Arias met on 8 February with a high-level technical delegation with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani and Syria’s transitional president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, in Damascus.
At the time, the Organisation said the meetings were long, fruitful, and highly open, and involved a deep exchange of information that would form a basis for achieving concrete results and breaking a stalemate that had lasted for more than 11 years.
On 9 October, the Syrian Foreign Ministry welcomed the OPCW decision on “the accelerated destruction of any remaining chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic”. The decision stipulated that the name of the chemical program in Syria on the Executive Council’s agenda be amended to “Elimination of any remnants of the chemical weapons program from the Assad era”.
The decision calls on OPCW inspection teams to continue investigating and collecting evidence related to the use of chemical weapons, with these efforts to support national accountability processes, in contrast to previous practice in which investigative findings were shared only with UN bodies.
In June, the Organisation deployed the first team from the Office of Special Missions (OSM) in Syria, tasked with visiting declared or suspected sites of activities related to chemical weapons, collecting evidence and documents, taking samples for analysis in designated laboratories, and performing other functions.
An Israeli attack on the General Staff building in Damascus in mid-July prevented the deployment of a second team from the OPCW Technical Secretariat.
The Secretariat is currently planning upcoming inspections at the Barzeh and Jamraya facilities (near Damascus, southern Syria), which belong to the “Scientific and Technological Research Commission”.
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