Finance
India has abstain from yet another UN Security Council resolution involving Ukraine, this time a motion sponsored by Russia (UNSC).
Only China joined Russia in voting for a probe into what Moscow claimed was a joint bio-warfare program run by the US and Ukraine in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
All ten non-permanent members abstained, and the only negative votes from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France did not amount to vetoes because the resolution failed to receive the required nine votes.
Counsellor Asokan Amarnath explained India’s decision to abstain by citing the lack of “an effective, universal, and non-discriminatory verification mechanism” for implementing the BWC’s provisions.
He told the Council that creating such a mechanism is “necessary to strengthen the BWC and its implementation.”
“We hope that the current situation will provide impetus for early consideration and negotiation of such a Protocol,” he added.
India is one of the 184 signatories to the Convention on Biological Weapons, which prohibits the use, manufacture, distribution, and stockpiling of biological weapons.
This was at least the 11th time India had abstained on a substantive resolution involving Ukraine at the Security Council and the General Assembly.
Amarnath emphasized the significance of Article X of the BWC, which grants nations the right to participate in biological research and share biological information, materials, and equipment for peaceful purposes.
“India emphasizes that biological-related activities for peaceful purposes that are fully consistent with the obligations of the Convention should not be jeopardized,” he added.
The US has denied Russia’s allegations about the bioweapons program, claiming that its Cooperative Biological Threat Reduction program only assisted Ukraine in destroying any material left in that country by the Soviet Union when it gained independence.
Russia has claimed that biological weapons were being developed in Ukrainian laboratories with US funding and assistance, and it has distributed what it claims are documents pertaining to the alleged cooperation that it seized after invading Ukraine.
It distributed a 300-page dossier outlining the allegations last week.
Russia’s resolution, according to US Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is “based on disinformation, dishonesty, bad faith, and a total lack of respect for this body.”
She claimed that Russia was aware that the US’ “Cooperative Threat Reduction efforts are not for military purposes” because Moscow had “participated in this very kind of cooperation with us, including on biological threats” for the previous two decades.
Dmitri Polyansky, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative, accused the West of having a “colonial mentality” in opposing its proposal for an inquiry to report by the end of the month.
Source:OCN
