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Syria hands over remaining chemical weapons for destruction

23 June 2014 23:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Syria on Monday handed over the remaining 100 tonnes of toxic material it had declared to the global chemical weapons watchdog, but the country cannot be declared free of the weapons of mass destruction, the organisation's chief said, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The chemicals, roughly 8 percent of a total 1,300 tonnes reported to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), had been held at a storage site which the government of President Bashar al-Assad previously said was inaccessible due to fighting with rebels.

The security situation in the area has now improved and the containers of chemicals were taken by truck to the Syrian port of Latakia and loaded onto a ship to be destroyed at sea on a specially equipped U.S. vessel, said OPCW chief Ahmet Uzumcu.

"A major landmark in this mission has been reached today. The last of the remaining chemicals identified for removal from Syria were loaded this afternoon aboard the Danish ship Ark Futura," Uzumcu told a news conference in The Hague.

The bulk of Syria's chemical stockpile had already been shipped out of Latakia, part of a multi-million-dollar operation involving some 30 countries.

Syria agreed last September to destroy its entire chemical weapons programme under a deal negotiated with the United States and Russia after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.

The agreement averted U.S. military strikes in response to the worst chemical weapons attack in decades, which Washington and its European allies blamed on Assad's regime. Assad blames rebels battling to oust him for the chemical attack.

It will be several months before Syria's entire chemical weapons programme can be destroyed, Uzumcu said.

INVESTIGATION

Uzumcu said an investigation into alleged use of chlorine in Syria's civil war and a review of the list of chemicals Syria has admitted possessing would continue. Western governments have raised questions over the list provided by the Assad government.

"All declared chemical weapons have left Syria (but) clearly we cannot say as the secretariat of the OPCW that Syria doesn't possess any chemical weapons any more," he added.

"While a major chapter in our endeavours closes today, OPCW's work in Syria will continue. We hope to conclude soon the clarification of certain aspects of the Syrian declaration and commence the destruction of certain structures that were used as chemical weapons production facilities," said Uzumcu.