Syria accused of hiding chemical weapons

Syria has given up less than five percent of its chemical weapons arsenal and will miss next week’s deadline to send all toxic agents abroad for destruction, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday.The deliveries, in two shipments this month to the northern Syrian port of Latakia totalled 4,1 percent of the roughly 1433 metric tons of toxic agents reported by Damascus to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It’s not enough and there is no sign of more,” one source briefed on the situation said.
The internationally backed operation, overseen by a joint OPCW-United Nations mission, is now six to eight weeks behind schedule. Damascus needs to show it is still serious about relinquishing its chemical weapons, the sources told Reuters.

Failure to eliminate its chemical weapons could expose Syria to sanctions, although these would have to supported in the UN Security Council by Russia and China, which have so far refused to back such measures against President Bashar al-Assad.

The deal under which Syria undertook to eliminate its chemical arsenal stopped the United States and its allies from launching bombing raids to punish Assad for a chemical attack last August and made clear the limits to international action against him.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon suggested in a report to the Security Council this week that shipments had been unnecessarily delayed and urged the Syrian government to speed up the process.

That is the message that will be given to Syria’s representative to the OPCW during its executive council meeting today in The Hague, the sources said.

A senior Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the UN Security Council will be briefed on the issue by mission head Sigrid Kaag next week.

“All the indications are, and the secretary-general’s report makes clear, that actually the regime has been sort of stalling on the implementation of the agreement,” the diplomat said.

“It will be important what Sigrid Kaag says about whether she thinks these delays are deliberately politically-motivated and why or whether there’s any truth in the weather, the security and those more technical aspects,” he said. — Reuters.