March 7, 2025
Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, High Representative Izumi Nakamitsu. Your testimony highlights the gravity of the situation facing the Syrian people.
President Trump responded to the Assad regime’s barbaric use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians in Syria with military strikes in 2017, and then again in 2018 with our allies France and the United Kingdom. This is how to achieve peace through strength.
Madam President, we have a historic opportunity to close this dark chapter in history and to start a new one – creating a Syria that is safer for its people and more secure for the region and the world.
All elements of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program must now be secured, declared, and safely destroyed under international verification.
This imperative is two-fold: To bring Syria into compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and, critically, to ensure that any remaining elements do not end up in the wrong hands.
The window of opportunity is short. All stakeholders need to act quickly to facilitate the work of the OPCW.
The United States welcomes the initial positive steps taken by the OPCW and the interim Syrian authorities.
We are encouraged that, as the High Representative just noted, following OPCW Director-General Arias’ historic visit to Damascus, the Syrian interim authorities named a “focal point for chemical weapons” in order to commence this work.
The OPCW has a tremendously important mission before it, one that contributes directly to global security, and one that requires support from all. And we, in this Council, have a responsibility to finish what we started back in 2013 when the Council adopted Resolution 2118 with the aim of eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons program and holding those responsible for use of chemical weapons to account. We must remain seized of this critical matter until the work is done.
We all seek to achieve a world free of chemical weapons. Achieving this goal will help us in our pursuit of peace, in the region and around the world. Let us move one step closer by supporting the OPCW as it assumes this vital role in Syria.
I thank you.