Syrians meet toxic weapons deadline
SYRIA
BASHAR AL-ASSAD’S regime has destroyed all its equipment for making chemical weapons, according to the latest findings of the inspectors overseeing the operation.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the Syrian regime had met the second major deadline of a deal to destroy its chemical weapons arsenal in return for the United States holding off from military intervention in the country’s civil war.
‘‘Syria has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable,’’ a statement from the OPCW said.
The target date for this phase of the operation was November 1.
The regime was set three phases under the deal forced on it by Russia after the chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburbs of East and West Ghouta in August that killed hundreds of people.
The first phase, a full declaration of its chemical weapons programme, was met by the last week in September.
The final phase is the destruction of the chemical agents, a more complex task due to happen by next summer.
The main impediment continuing civil war.
Two of the regime’s 23 main chemical weapons sites could not be reached by inspectors because of the fighting, but they said their contents had already been moved elsewhere.
In addition,
they
said
is
the
the
al- Rights, which monitors the conflict from Britain, said yesterday that the number of dead had reached 120,000, half of them noncombatant.
They also question whether Assad might be able to preserve some of his chemical weapons programme without declaring it. ‘‘Syria likely assesses there is little chance that lack of candour in their declaration will be discovered in the short-term,’’ said David Reeths, an expert with IHS Jane’s.
However, Thomas Countryman, the US assistant secretary for non-proliferation, told a congressional hearing in Washington: ‘‘I am increasingly confident that we will be able to complete this task, the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons programme, within the target date of June 30th of next year.’’