UN General Assembly is not authorized to create structures to investigate war crimes in Syria - Churkin
MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) - The UN General Assembly has no right to set up mechanisms to investigate war crimes in Syria, Russian envy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said, adding that he doubts that these investigations are unbiased
"The General Assembly has no powers to create such structures. Nevertheless, the UN secretary-general was asked to do that and the new secretary-general will most likely work on this issue. The decision adopted by the General Assembly states that the new structure on the investigation into war crimes in Syria will be financed with voluntary donations. That essentially means that those who will give money, sponsor this group, will expect from it results that will suit them. Clearly, these will be anti-Damascus, anti-Assad investigations," Churkin said in an interview published in the Monday edition of Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The adoption by the General Assembly of this decision was a result of the fact that "everyone's nerves are 'exposed' as regards the Syrian issue," he said. "Many delegations are ready to vote for anything, for any resolution whose purpose is declared as halting the violence in Syria. Most members of the UN are ready to support such a document, without thinking about its legal and practical consequences. The reality is such that if you propose a General Assembly resolution and say that its adoption is needed to stop the violence in Syria, most members of the UN will vote for this document, without reading the text, without thinking about any details," Churkin said.
Commenting on the recent UN Security Council resolution on Aleppo, he said that "its wording raised very serious issues." "The key provision of the document proposed by Paris was that the UN secretary-general was supposed to send a UN humanitarian mission to the eastern districts of Aleppo, which have just been liberated from terrorists, and also those parts of the city where the process of 'cleansing' from extremists continued, right now, without consulting with anyone. The probability of some militant who stayed there and hid in the backstreet committing a provocation and opening fire on unarmed, unprotected UN officials in the event of such a scenario was very high," Churkin said.
"When I explained our concern associated with the French text, it became clear that our colleagues heeded our arguments. It's just that those were arguments that were probably very difficult to object to essentially. After that, we began discussing the text of the new resolution in a meeting with restricted attendance," he said.
The updated edition of the resolution "reflected provisions that necessitate appropriate consultations on the work of officials of humanitarian organizations in the eastern districts of Aleppo with all interested parties, among other things, it means with the Syrian government as well," Churkin said.
"The French had to agree with the new concept of the document on Aleppo because all members of the Security Council looked at them with perplexity and said: the Russians have a good option of doing everything without exposing UN officials to risk, why are you against it?" Churkin said.