MESOP : SYRIA AFTER THE ELECTION FARCE / Forget about the Chemical weapons deadline
OPCW: ‘The deadline will not be met’
The OPCW is currently investigating allegations that the Syrian Army attacked multiple towns in the provinces of Hama and Idlib using chlorine gas. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which the Syrian government signed in October 2013, allows countries to have chlorine, but states that the government must declare its presence to the OPCW and prevents its use as a weapon.Syria will not meet the deadline to remove chemical weapons from its territory, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations (OPCW-UN) Joint Mission, Sigrid Kaag, told reporters on Wednesday.
“The deadline will not be met,” Special Coordinator Kaag said Wednesday after a session with the UN Security Council, speaking about the June 30, 2014 deadline to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons program.
The focus of the mission to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons program will now shift to the immediate removal of the remaining weapons material, said Kaag.
An estimated 7.2 percent of Syria’s weapons supply remains in the country and is currently held at a single site, but cannot be moved due to “volatile security conditions.”
Kaag cited the Damascus suburb of Adra, where the convoy must pass, as the major point of security concern. The weapons material must be transported to the port city of Latakia, where it would then be shipped by Danish and Norwegian vessels to an American ship and destroyed at sea.