UNSC calls emergency meeting after suspected chemical attack

World Today

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency session in New York to discuss Tuesday’s apparent chemical attack in Syria.

CGTN’s John Terrett reports.

The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, held up grim pictures from the alleged gas attack on civilians in Syria. We can’t close our eyes, she said.

“We don’t yet know everything about yesterday’s attack but there are many things we do know … we know yesterday’s attack bears all the hallmarks of the Assad regime use of chemical weapons,” Haley added.

It was an emotional emergency session – pictures of men, women and children struggling for breath, some foaming, are shocking the world.

An emotional British ambassador pointed his finger in the direction of his Russian counterpart – and asked, “What’s your plan? It doesn’t look like terrorism to me it looks like the work of Assad!”

“Those consequences are painted on the stricken faces of the children, a regime that will stop at nothing,” added Matthew Rycroft, British Ambassador to the UN.

The Russian responded by looking his accuser directly in the eye.

“You’re not doing anything about the situation …you are doing one thing, you are submitting drafts in the Security Council that only provoke  and you’re putting unilateral pressure on the joint investigative mechanism without even hiding and trying to pressure to produce facts that you need,” Vladimir Safronkov, Deputy Russian Ambassador to U.N. said.

Most Western governments said they suspect the government of Bashar al-Assad is behind the use of chemicals in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s Idlib Province.

Both Damascus and ally Russia denies it, citing an opposition chemical arms dump that got bombed as the cause.

In the Council, the Chinese ambassador said China’s “profoundly shocked” by the apparent use of harmful chemicals against civilians in Syria.