Syria FM to join meeting of chemical weapons watchdog

By AFP 5 March 2025, 9:08 am

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People sit across from a poster depicting Syria's president Bashar al-Assad in a gas mask during an event in the rebel-held northern city of Afrin, on August 20, 2023, marking the 10-year anniversary of chemical attacks that killed over 1,400 people in Ghouta, near the capital. (Rami al Sayed/AFP)

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani says he will take part in a meeting today of the international chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands, nearly three months after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.

“Today, for the first time in Syria’s history, I am attending the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague,” Shaibani says in a statement on X, adding that “this participation reaffirms Syria’s commitment to international security and honors those who lost their lives suffocating at the hands of the Assad regime.”