CHILE STATEMENT BY H.E. AMBASSADOR MARÍA TERESA INFANTE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF CHILE TO THE OPCW AT THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH SESSION OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Mr Chairperson, I am pleased to welcome you once more and thank you for your management at the head of this Executive Council. I also welcome the Director-General, who is playing a vital role at the head of the Organisation. Our delegation has endorsed the statement, given by Her Excellency Ms Haifa Aissami, Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement and China. This Executive Council is being held at a time when we are starting the preparatory work for the Fourth Review Conference. We are pushing forward with the painstaking work of the Open-Ended Working Group for the Preparation of the Fourth Review Conference, led by Ambassador I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja of Indonesia, in areas that are fundamental to the next few years of the Organisation. We will lend all our support to the process, working together in particular with the Latin American countries. We have participated also in the energetic and rewarding exercise on future priorities, which is being conducted by Ambassadors Sabine Nölke and Bruce Koloane, supported by the Technical Secretariat. They have set an ambitious exhaustive mandate, and we believe that the contributions made by the delegations and other relevant actors have highlighted matters on which broad agreement exists, as well as others which require more attention. Their recommendations will be very helpful in the discussions of the Open-Ended Working Group for the Preparation of the Fourth Review Conference. In matters of verification, capacities to conduct inspections, investigate facts and emergence of threats from non-State actors, with approaches able to counter the grave reality of terrorism, requirements emerge which our participation in the Chemical Weapons Convention require us to deal with, by assuming responsibility for the duties it implies. We are bearing in mind that we want to avoid the re-emergence of chemical weapons and that we all, as States Parties, are called for the same purposes, pursuing the universality and effectiveness of the Convention. EC-87/NAT.39 page 2 We have before us the objective we assumed when ratifying the Convention, and which we renewed in the Ypres Declaration of 2015, namely to exclude all possibility of possessing and using chemical weapons. That is why we were so pleased to see that the process of destroying declared chemical weapons had been completed in the Russian Federation and Libya, as had the chemical weapons remaining in Iraq. We emphasise once more that these processes involved new forms of cooperation and investment, and an enormous technical deployment. We welcome the information on the sustained progress made in this area by the United States, and the Director-General’s report, which tells us that country is adopting the measures necessary to meet the planned date for completing destruction activities. The report also describes the measures that are being implemented to that end. In recent months, we have received periodic reports on the process of the destruction of production facilities in the Syrian Arab Republic, with the cooperation of the international community. We trust that this operation will soon be concluded, given that the security situation has improved. On the other hand, we cannot fail to repeat our concern at reports – as has been indicated by the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) – relating to the use of chemical weapons in last year’s incidents, as well as other allegations of incidents that allegedly took place this year in that country, and which the FFM is investigating. We recognise the professional work of the FFM, its existence is necessary, and we are in favour of keeping it and reinforcing it. We see it as an appropriate mechanism to complement the capacities which our own States Parties ought to possess, with a view to preventing and responding to the use of chemicals as weapons, in any context or circumstance. It is not for us here to attribute blame, that task belongs to other institutions. These must have the objective elements necessary to arrive at conclusions, while applying international law. The findings of the OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, the mandate of which proved impossible to renew, strengthens our conviction that the OPCW must continue to address its tasks with the full support of the parties, protecting its capacity to reach agreements and also the integrity of the Convention. The use of chemical weapons, irrespective of who is responsible, cannot leave us cold. The OPCW is continuing to work on the Syrian declaration of its chemical weapons programme, and subsequent amendments thereto. We are grateful for the information on this which came to us last week, as well as the continuing efforts calculated to settle the persistent discrepancies, with the contribution of new information by the Syrian authorities, and recognise the efforts being made to achieve progress in this area. These efforts are necessary if the Technical Secretariat is to affirm that it has submitted a precise, complete declaration, conform to the requirements of the Convention and by decision EC-M-33/DEC.1, (dated 27 September 2013) of the Executive Council of the OPCW. As it has on previous occasions, my delegation joins its voice to those expecting the Syrian Arab Republic to redouble its efforts with a view to cooperating in making more rapid progress to sole outstanding matters, as well as taking note of questions designed to complement and clarify the information submitted in respect of its chemical weapons programme. EC-87/NAT.39 page 3 The use of chemical weapons by non-State actors is no hypothetical theory. The discussions in the Open-Ended Working Group on Terrorism and the Sub-group on non-State actors have provided fora in which to exchange points of view as to how the OPCW might continue to contribute to global efforts to confront this scourge, and, what is more, to explore in greater depth the capacities conferred by the Convention on the OPCW. Last October, the Executive Council adopted a decision which had political, technical and legal significance. It demonstrated that we can work together on this topic. The proposals contained in that decision are helpful for the preparation of the Fourth Review Conference. It is up to the States Parties to move forward in parallel to ensure the accountability of nonState actors. The third workshop for review and evaluation of the elements of a framework directed at the full application of Article XI will be held on 2 May 2018. This is an opportunity to reflect, in panel format, on how to continue to make progress in various thematic areas, building on the basis of the findings of last year’s workshop. The foregoing ought to allow us to work on the agreed components in the decision adopted by the Conference of the States Parties, in December 2011, in a balanced manner. Among them, let us recall those designed to facilitate participation by the States Parties in the fullest possible exchange of chemicals, equipment and technical and scientific information on the development and application of chemistry. We shall work to ensure that the workshop produces ideas or initiatives for consideration at the Fourth Review Conference. Finally, this is a chance to repeat our support for the proposal by Australia and Switzerland, addressing the topic of toxic chemicals that affect the central nervous system, and the potential of the same to be used in aerosol form in certain riot-control scenarios. This topic is a challenge to the Convention, and we think we should combine our efforts to face it, given the context of preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons. I should be obliged if this statement could be considered an official document of this session, and published on the OPCW website. Many thanks.