S/PV.8764
Overview of Security Council Meeting Records
This was a monthly briefing on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which the Council president for October (Russia) decided to hold in public. The presidency invited José Bustani, a former director of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to brief. The European members of the Council (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, and the UK) and the US objected, arguing that Bustani, who left the OPCW more than a decade before the Council began considering the Syria chemical weapons file, lacked the relevant expertise. Speaking on behalf of the six members, the UK asked the presidency to put the issue of the proposed briefer to a procedural vote.
