Syria has destroyed chemical facilities – watchdog

Syria has destroyed all of its declared
chemical weapons production and mixing
facilities, meeting a major deadline in an
ambitious disarmament programme, the
international chemical weapons watchdog said. The Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons said in the document its
teams had inspected 21 out of 23 chemical
weapons sites across the country. The other two were too dangerous to inspect
but the chemical equipment had already been
moved to other sites which experts had visited,
it said. “The OPCW is satisfied it has verified, and seen
destroyed, all declared critical production/
mixing/filling equipment from all 23 sites,’’ the
document said. Under a Russian-American brokered deal,
Damascus agreed to destroy all its chemical
weapons after Washington threatened to use
force in response to the killing of hundreds of
people in a sarin attack on the outskirts of
Damascus on Aug. 21. The U.S. and its allies blamed Assad’s forces
for the attack and several earlier incidents. The Syrian president has rejected the charge,
blaming rebel brigades. Under the disarmament timetable, Syria was
due to render unusable all production and
chemical weapons filling facilities by Nov. 1 – a
target it has now met. By mid-2014 it must have destroyed its entire
stockpile of chemical weapons. (Reuters/NAN)