Syria to miss deadline on its chemical weapon destruction
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Photo: internet
(VOVworld) - The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki Moon has informed the UN Security Council that the eradication of Syria’s chemical arms stockpile would not be completed by June 30 due to the Syrian government’s inability to ensure safety for the final removal of weapons. Ban Ki-moon said that around 7.2 percent of the stockpile remained in Syria, awaiting shipment for destruction abroad. He added that that some activities related to the elimination of the chemical weapons program of the Syrian Arab Republic would continue beyond 30 June 2014.
Syria also missed the April 27 deadline set for it to hand over all of its chemical weapons to international observers for destruction outside the country. These deadlines are sealed in the 2013 agreement brokered by the US and Russia and supported by the UN following a sarin gas attack in the suburb of Syria’s capital Damascus last August, killing hundreds.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that the remaining Syrian chemical weapons had been gathered and awaited to be transported from Syria once security conditions were ensured. Danish and Swedish ships are ready to transport the weapons from Syria’s Latatika port to a US vessel for offshore destruction.