U.N. Official Urges Syria to Finish Chemical Arms Disposal
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Version 0 of 1. Acknowledging that Syria will miss the June 30 deadline for eliminating its chemical weapons, the top United Nations official overseeing the arsenal’s eradication said Wednesday it was “very, very critical” for Syria to export the final shipment, which is packed and ready to go but is trapped in an area contested by insurgents in the civil war. The official, Sigrid Kaag, said she would be traveling to Damascus in the coming days to press the government of President Bashar al-Assad on the complete removal of the weapons material. Ms. Kaag also addressed speculation that Mr. Assad, who just won re-election in what the government called a landslide victory, held secret stashes of chemical munitions that his government had not declared last year when joining the international treaty that bans them. That speculation is based partly on discrepancies between Syria’s declared stockpile and what had been destroyed so far. “It is quite common for state parties to submit a declaration that needs to be revised,” she told reporters at the United Nations. Ms. Kaag made the remarks after having privately briefed the Security Council on recent progress — or lack of it — achieved in the destruction of the 1,200-ton declared Syrian stockpile. The destruction began last fall, overseen jointly by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based group that administers the treaty. All but one batch — amounting 7.2 percent of the total — has been either destroyed inside Syria or transferred to Danish and Norwegian ships anchored in the Mediterranean. Once the final batch, stored at an airfield near Damascus, is moved to the ships, they will rendezvous with an American vessel, the Cape Ray, that is specially outfitted to render the chemicals harmless. “The urgency, the time, the pressure to remove the remaining 7.2 percent is very very critical and I’ll be back in Damascus in the next few days to pursue that conversation,” Ms. Kaag said. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in a letter to the Security Council leaked last week, had already conceded that the June 30 deadline for the destruction of Syria’s chemical munitions, imposed by the Security Council last September, would not be met. Ms. Kaag declined to speculate on when the final shipment would be exported. She explained that the Cape Ray needs 60 days, once it receives the chemicals, to render them inert. Ms. Kaag also said the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons would meet on June 17 to discuss allegations of chlorine-gas use in the Syria conflict. An investigation team it sent to Syria aborted its trip when it came under attack on May 27. Malik Ellahi, a senior member of that team who briefed diplomats at the organization’s headquarters in The Hague on Wednesday, said the investigation had not been disbanded. Mr. Ellahi said in a telephone interview later that the allegations of chlorine use had been persistent. Mr. Assad’s forces and their armed opponents have blamed each other. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire and there’s lots of smoke,” Mr. Ellahi said. “It’s important to let the perpetrators know that this issue will be kept under the spotlight, that the international community will not relent.” Recalling details of the attack on the investigation team, Mr. Ellahi said its convoy had been en route to the village of Kfar Zeita in Hama Province, which Syrian opposition groups said had come under assault twice days earlier with chlorine gas released from canisters dropped from the air, pointing to an action by government forces. “We wanted to get in as soon as possible because then the physical evidence is really fresh and more likely to stand the test of close scrutiny,” Mr. Ellahi said. A cease-fire had been negotiated with both government and opposition forces controlling the surrounding areas, but as they traveled toward Kfar Zeita, the lead vehicle was caught by the blast of a roadside bomb. Mr. Ellahi, who was traveling in the second vehicle, said that because no sound was coming from the lead vehicle’s radio, he feared the worst. “That was a terrible, terrible moment,” he said. But nobody was seriously wounded, so the lead vehicle’s passengers were redistributed in the three remaining vehicles and the convoy turned around. Soon Mr. Ellahi’s vehicle, by then in the lead, came under automatic weapons fire. “It was like driving in a hailstorm,” he said, describing the bullets, “except we could see the guy shooting at us.” Mr. Ellahi’s vehicle accelerated away and returned safely to Damascus, he said, while armed opposition elements stopped the two following vehicles and detained the team members until the main opposition group intervened to secure their release. |