WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Thursday, leaders from the United States and Russia announced they would be backing the UNSC resolution to identify and bring to justice any individuals involved in the use of chemical weapons, including chlorine bombs, in Syria.
“I do not need a UN panel to know that Assad is using crude chlorine bombs to terrorize Syrians,” Royce said Thursday responding to news that all members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) planned on backing an investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Royce said the investigatory panel created under the resolution should be used “to bring swift justice to Assad and his henchmen, not more delay.”
Russia and the United States reached an agreement in 2013 to work together to secure and destroy the vast majority of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile. The deal was struck as Washington was threatening military action against the Assad regime.
Syria joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and agreed to destroy its chemical arms stockpile after a 2013 sarin gas attack near Damascus killed more than 1,000 people.
At the end of October 2014, the OPCW reported that nearly 98 percent of chemical weapons removed from Syria had been destroyed.
However, multiple media reports and monitoring organizations have implicated the Assad regime in the use of chlorine bombs against civilians and rebels.
In March 2015, the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning the use of chlorine gas during the conflict in Syria.
