Estonia is for UN Security Council resolution on Syrian chemical weapons

Photo: SCANPIX

Estonia considers speedy and successful implementation of the agreement on the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons to be important and believes the UN Security Council should adopt a relevant resolution.

«For the implementation of the framework agreement a strict resolution of the UN Security Council dealing also with the question of possible noncompliance with the agreement is needed,» Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said on Wednesday. «The resolution is necessary for the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons to proceed smoothly.»

Syria has agreed to declare its chemical weapons within one week and destroy the stockpiles by mid-2014.

«The use of chemical weapons is a very serious violation of international law and the perpetrators of this crime must be punished according to international law. The International Criminal Court must prosecute them,» the Estonian minister said.

Britain, France and the United States stressed on Monday that a UN resolution on putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control must be «strong and binding.»

UN inspectors said there was unequivocal evidence that chemical weapons had been used in the Syrian conflict on a relatively large scale. According to the report, "the environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used."

The United States and Russia reached agreement in Geneva last week on a plan to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed after three days of negotiation that if Syria fails to comply it will have to face UN penalties.