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Syria hands over first batch of chemical weapons material Syria hands over first batch of chemical weapons material
(about 7 hours later)
Syria has moved the first batch of chemical weapons material out of the country, the international chemical weapons watchdog has said. Syria has moved the first batch of chemical weapon materials out of the country on to a Danish commercial vessel pending destruction, it has been confirmed. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the unspecified materials had been transported on to the ship via the northern Syrian port of Latakia. "It will remain at sea awaiting the arrival of additional priority chemical materials at the port," it added. "This movement initiates the process of transfer of chemical materials from the Syrian Arab Republic to locations outside its territory for destruction."
The material was transported from two sites to the port city of Latakia where it was collected by a Danish ship. President Bashar al-Assad agreed to surrender Syria's chemical weapons by next June under a deal that was proposed by Russia and hammered out with the US. This followed nerve gas attacks that killed some 1,400 people in the Ghouta area near Damascus last August – the worst chemical attack since Saddam Hussein's massacre of Kurds at Halabja in 1988. Western governments blamed the Ghouta attack on Assad's forces, while Syria insists rebel fighters were responsible.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said: "The vessel has been accompanied by naval escorts provided by Denmark and Norway, as well as the Syrian Arab Republic. It will remain at sea awaiting the arrival of additional priority chemical materials at the port." The continuing war, bad weather, bureaucratic, financial and technical issues meant that a December 31 deadline for the removal of the most deadly toxins was missed. The OPCW did not say what percentage of the "most critical" chemicals, including 20 tonnes of mustard nerve agent, had been transfered to the Danish ship.
Syria agreed to abandon its chemical weapons by June under a deal proposed by Russia and agreed with the US after a sarin gas attack on 21 August that western nations blamed on President Bashar al-Assad's forces. Damascus said rebels were responsible . OPCW and UN officials overseeing the delicate operation have said that the original timetable – which had envisaged a 500-tonne batch of the most dangerous chemical agents arriving in Latakia by the new year – was very ambitious. But they said the most important deadline was the end of March, by which time the first priority consignment should be destroyed.
War, bad weather, bureaucracy and technical issues delayed the 31 December deadline for the removal of the most deadly toxins from Syria. "A first quantity of priority chemical materials was moved from two sites to the port of Latakia for verification and was then loaded onto a Danish commercial vessel today," its statement said. Maritime security was being provided by Chinese, Danish, Norwegian and Russian ships – evidence of the broad international support for the destruction plan.
The OPCW did not say what percentage of the "most critical" chemicals, including around 20 tonnes of mustard nerve agent, were on the Danish vessel. By some estimates, Syria has one of the world's largest chemical weapons arsenals, though it has never declared it. It was maintained largely in response to Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons capability. The government had insisted that it would never use chemical weapons against its own people, only to repel external aggression.
"A first quantity of priority chemical materials was moved from two sites to the port of Latakia for verification and was then loaded on to a Danish commercial vessel today," the OPCW statement said. It said maritime security was being provided by Chinese, Danish, Norwegian and Russian ships. Under an agreement with the UN, Damascus is responsible for the safe packaging and transport of the materials to Latakia – including on the main road from the capital, where anti-Assad rebel forces are still active.
The Syrian government is responsible for safe packaging, transport along roads to Latakia – including the main highway from the capital where rebels are still active – and removal of chemical weapons. The stockpile will be taken from Latakia to Italy and then be neutralised at sea by a specially equipped US vessel, the Cape Ray, in a hydrolysis process involving the addition of hot water and chemical reagents. That should take a maximum of 60 days. That would give the Syrian government until roughly the end of January to deliver all the material to the coast.
After the US-Russian agreement the US shelved plans for strikes against Syria as punishment for the Ghouta attack – a development that was widely seen as a turning point in Assad's favour, which allowed the war and the massive use of conventional weapons to continue.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday that at least 274 people had been killed in four days of fighting between rebels and jihadists. The pro-opposition NGO said 129 fighters from moderate and Islamist rebel groups had been killed in clashes since Friday, with 99 members of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and 46 civilians.
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