UN Security Council has voted to extend the mandate of inspectors charged with determining who is behind confirmed chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The resolution extends the mandate for the so-called Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM, which was set to expire yesterday, for two weeks while diplomats try to negotiate a longer extension. France’s UN Ambassador Francois Delattre said, the mandate extension was only a first step.
Britain’s UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said that the extension was shorter than what western powers wanted but that it would at least allow the inspectors to continue their work.
The United States, Britain and France want the Security Council to impose sanctions on the Syrian government for using chemical weapons. But Russia, Syria’s closest ally, has repeatedly questioned investigators’ conclusions linking chemical weapons use to the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Russia has said it would also like to expand the inspectors’ mandate to cover the use of chemical weapons by terrorists beyond Syrian territory.