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Last of Syria’s Declared Chemical Arms Shipped Abroad Last of Syria’s Declared Chemical Arms Shipped Abroad
(about 4 hours later)
GENEVA — Syria has shipped out the last of its known stocks of chemical weapons for destruction overseas, the international agency overseeing the program announced on Monday. But the agency cautiously stopped short of pronouncing Syria free of all chemical weapons and said verification work was not complete. GENEVA — After months of delay, Syria exported the last of its known supplies of chemical weapons components on Monday for destruction overseas, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced, calling it a major achievement in a country engulfed by war.
After weeks of delay, Syria delivered the final stocks of the more than 1,300 tons of chemical agents it had declared to the port of Latakia, where they were loaded aboard a Danish vessel that left Monday afternoon, said Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. But the organization, which is helping oversee Syria’s compliance with its chemical disarmament promises, stopped short of pronouncing Syria free of all chemical weapons. It said that verification work was not complete and reminded the Syrian authorities that they have not yet destroyed — as required — a dozen facilities used for making and mixing the munitions. A separate inquiry by the organization into suspected use of chlorine gas bombs in the conflict is also pending.
“The declared chemical weapons have left Syria,” he said at a news conference at O.P.C.W. headquarters in The Hague, but he made clear that his organization could not say categorically that Syria no longer possessed any chemical weapons. Syria delivered the final stocks of the more than 1,300 tons of chemical agents it had declared to the port of Latakia, where they were loaded aboard a Danish vessel that left Monday afternoon, said Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the organization, which has been collaborating with the United Nations to monitor Syria’s vows.
Nonetheless, the announcement is a milestone in the effort to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program. The effort, monitored by Mr. Uzumcu’s organization and the United Nations, began nine months ago under an agreement negotiated by Russia and the United States amid international outrage over an Aug. 21 attack in which chemical nerve agents were used in the suburb of Damascus and killed hundreds of people. Syria’s government and the insurgents seeking to topple it blamed each other. “The declared chemical weapons have left Syria,” he said at a news conference at the headquarters of the chemical weapons organization in The Hague, but he made clear that his group could not say categorically that Syria no longer possessed any chemical weapons.
“Never before has an entire arsenal of a category of weapons of mass destruction been removed from a country experiencing a state of internal armed conflict,” Mr. Uzumcu said, applauding a program some disarmament experts had doubted could be achieved. “And this has been accomplished within very demanding and tight time frames.” Nonetheless, the announcement was regarded by Mr. Uzumcu as a major achievement in the effort to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program. The effort began nine months ago under an agreement negotiated by Russia and the United States amid international outrage over an Aug. 21 attack in which chemical nerve agents were used in the suburbs of Damascus and killed hundreds of people.
The achievement, however, has been overshadowed by repeated delays in the removal of the chemical stocks, which ensures that a June 30 deadline for the destruction of the chemicals, established under the agreement reached by Russia and the United States, will be missed. Questions also remain over how and when other components of the destruction program will be completed. Syria’s government and the insurgents seeking to topple it blamed each other for that attack, but the United States and its allies concluded that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had been responsible. President Obama threatened punitive airstrikes on Mr. Assad’s military, which were averted after the Russian-American diplomatic deal, in which Syria agreed to purge its chemical weapons stockpile, destroy the means of making them, and join the international treaty that prohibits their use.
Four months will be required to complete the destruction of Syria’s toxic arsenal, which included mustard gas, precursor chemicals for sarin gas and other nerve agents. Destruction of some Syrian chemical agents has started in Finland. Other destruction operations will be carried out at sea aboard an American vessel, the Cape Ray, and at facilities in the United States, Britain and Germany. “Never before has an entire arsenal of a category of weapons of mass destruction been removed from a country experiencing a state of internal armed conflict,” Mr. Uzumcu said, applauding a program some disarmament experts had doubted could succeed. “And this has been accomplished within very demanding and tight time frames.”
Mr. Uzumcu described Syria’s cooperation with the program as only “satisfactory” and said his agency’s work in Syria would continue to clarify “certain aspects” of Syria’s declaration detailing the extent of its chemical weapons program. Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations official who oversees the compliance operation in Syria, called the accomplishment a “milestone,” coming after she had repeatedly prodded the Syrian authorities to expedite the final shipment. But she tempered her enthusiasm.
A team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will visit Damascus shortly “to address these issues in a detailed” way in order to reassure the international community that Syria’s declaration was accurate and complete, Mr. Uzumcu said. “Personally, when you look at the human tragedy that has befallen Syria and the region, there is never a sense of joy — perhaps a sense of relief,” she said in a telephone interview from Cyprus, where her Damascus-based operation also keeps an office.
A number of disarmament experts also welcomed Mr. Uzumcu’s announcement. But they, too, hedged their compliments, expressing concern that Syria may still have undeclared chemical arms. They noted that the government had sealed — but not destroyed as required under the treaty — facilities for mixing toxic chemicals.
“To its great credit, the O.P.C.W., the United Nations, the United States, Russia, and a diverse coalition of more than two dozen states stepped up to the unprecedented task of verifiably removing a country’s entire chemical weapons stockpile under tight deadlines and wartime conditions,” Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based advocacy and research group, said in a statement. Nonetheless, he said, “the work of the O.P.C.W. is not yet complete.”
Dr. Paul F. Walker, a nonproliferation specialist and director of the Environmental Security and Sustainability Program at Green Cross International, an ecological advocacy group, called the complete removal of Syria’s known stockpile “a major and historic step forward for building a world free of chemical weapons.”
But he also noted in a statement the repeated delays, the need to verify its declarations and the concern over the 12 chemical production facilities, which remain physically intact. “The next steps in Syria’s chemical weapons demilitarization process will also be very important,” Dr. Walker said.
Scott Spence, a former legal researcher for the chemical weapons organization and now program director at Verification, Research, Training and Information Center, or Vertic, a Geneva-based nongovernmental organization, called the effort to purge Syria’s chemical weapons “a good story but with a cautionary tale.”
The repeated delays in the removal of the chemical stocks ensured that a June 30 deadline for the destruction of the chemicals, established under the agreement reached by Russia and the United States, would be missed, since it will now take two to four months for the entire stockpile to be rendered harmless.
Syria’s toxic arsenal included mustard gas, precursor chemicals for sarin gas and other nerve agents. Destruction of some Syrian chemical agents has started in Finland. Other destruction operations will be carried out at sea aboard an American vessel, the Cape Ray, and at facilities in the United States, Britain and Germany.
Mr. Uzumcu described Syria’s cooperation with the program as only “satisfactory” and said his agency’s work in Syria would continue to clarify “certain aspects” of Syria’s declaration detailing the extent of its chemical weapons program. An O.P.C.W. team will visit Damascus shortly to address unresolved issues and assure that Syria’s declaration was accurate and complete, Mr. Uzumcu said.
Mr. Uzumcu also said the agency will also continue with its inquiry into the use of chlorine gas, which stalled after a fact-finding mission sent to Syria last month was attacked with a roadside bomb and sprayed with automatic weapons fire as it traveled to one of the suspected sites. Chlorine, a common industrial chemical, is not on the list of banned chemical agents, but its use in a weapon would violate the treaty.
Ms. Kaag said that her mission would reduce its size, with the hopes of finishing entirely by the end of September. Part of their remaining task is to reconcile potential discrepancies in Syria’s list of declared chemicals. “The bulk of what we set out to do has been achieved,” she said.