Chemical weapon details filed by Syrian government

Watchdog group says information on Syria’s programs and facilities to ‘provide the basis’ for their destruction

By AP 27 October 2013, 3:48 pm

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Video broadcast on Syrian State Television purports to show an UN expert examining a chemical weapons plant at an unknown location in Syria, October 8, 2013 (AP/Syrian State Television)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Syria has filed details of its poison gas and nerve agent program and an initial plan to destroy it to the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, the organization announced Sunday.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement that Syria completed its declaration Thursday, as part of a strict and ambitious timeline that aims to destroy the lethal stockpile by mid-2014.

The Hague-based group said such declarations by member states “provide the basis on which plans are devised for a systematic, total and verified destruction of declared chemical weapons and production facilities.”

Such declarations made to the organization remain confidential and no details of Syria’s program were released.

Syria already had given preliminary details to the OPCW when it said it was joining the organization in September in a move that warded off possible U.S. military strikes in the aftermath of an August 21 chemical weapon attack on a Damascus suburb. Syria denies responsibility for the deadly attack.

OPCW inspectors were hastily dispatched to Syria this month and have visited most of the 23 sites Damascus declared and begun overseeing destruction work to ensure that machines used to mix chemicals and fill munitions with poison gas are no longer functioning.

Syria is believed to possess around 1,000 metric tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin.

It has not yet been decided how or where destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons will happen. Syria’s declaration includes a general plan for destruction that will be considered by the OPCW’s 41-nation executive council on November 15.

Norway’s foreign minister announced Friday that the country had turned down a US request to receive the bulk of Syria’s chemical weapons for destruction because it doesn’t have the capabilities to complete the task by the deadlines given.