Decision day loomed Wednesday at the world’s chemical weapons monitor as Western powers frantically sought behind closed doors to rally support for moves to beef up the watchdog’s powers.
Britain, backed by allies such as the United States and France, is leading a drive to enable the independent Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to attribute blame for any use of toxic substances in Syria.
But they have met fierce opposition from Russia, backed by Syria and Iran. Both Moscow and Damascus stand accused by the international community of using chemical weapons in recent months.
The move comes amid growing frustration at the lack of a mechanism to punish perpetrators amid repeated recent attacks with chlorine, sarin and even mustard gas in Syria and Iraq, and the use of rare nerve agents in Britain and Malaysia.
After a heated 12-hour public meeting on Tuesday, the rare special session of the OPCW’s top policy-making body moved into private on Wednesday away from the glare of the world’s media for what is expected to be a tense vote.
“Today is decision day … for the @OPCW in The Hague. We will vote at 14:40,” the British delegation to the OPCW said in a tweet.
It maintained that there was “growing support to empower the OPCW to determine responsibility for chemical weapons attacks and strengthen” the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), for the vote that will start at 1240 GMT.
In a war of words on Twitter, mirroring the tensions inside the cavernous World Forum where the meeting is being held, the Russian embassy hit back that “deception is perhaps the word of the day”.
Britain had failed to provide any evidence that Moscow was behind the never agent attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March, it said.
Instead Britain has “embroiled their allies in the blatant campaign against Russia. Now they try to drag the #OPCW in their games.”
