Sarin Gas Investigation Completed OPCW Enters Syria To Disarm Chemical Weapons.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Sarin Gas Investigation Completed OPCW Enters Syria To Disarm Chemical Weapons.

Chemical disarmament inspectors cross into Syria

Published time: October 01, 2013 11:44
Edited time: October 01, 2013 18:45

The team of some 20 international inspectors who have been issued the task to ensure that Syria chemical weapons are destroyed have crossed the border into the country.
On Monday, international chemical weapons inspectors completed investigations surrounding the alleged Sarin gas attacks in the country.
On the same day the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) left the Netherlands to begin a complex mission of finding and dismantling an estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal, which includes sarin and mustard gas, scattered across some 45 different sites nationwide.
The mission follows a UN resolution which demanded that Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal be destroyed. The procedure to purge the country of chemical weapons stocks has a target finish date of mid-2014.
The OPCW group entered the country from Lebanon over the Masnaa border crossing in some 20 vehicles carrying equipment as well as security personnel.
The experts have set up a logistics base for its immediate work, the UN said in a statement.

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Syria disarmament countdown: UN inspectors to embark on most hazardous mission ever

Photo: EPA

The most dangerous mission in the history of chemical warfare is to kick off in Syria on Monday, after the Assad government has indicated the whereabouts of each and every of its chemical arms caches. Now it is up to UN-mandated OPCW inspectors to oversee the destruction of stocked toxins. At times, they will have to wear layers of bio and bullet-proof protection suits and carry air tanks in 35-degree heat, media say.

According to the Guardian, a team of 20 international experts, including engineers, chemists and paramedics, will leave the Netherlands for Syria today in a bid to dismantle one of the world’s biggest chemical weapon stockpiles amid the ongoing civil war and accusations of gassing civilians.

Inspectors from the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will sometimes have to wear body armor and helmets over their chemical protection suits or even carry air tanks on their backs in order to abide by a UN Security Council’s resolution to destroy about 1,000 tons of nerve agents, such as sarin, and other poisonous gases, like sulphur mustard.

The team drawn from all over the world is due to arrive in the Syrian capital of Damascus tomorrow, where they will be joined by more experts and liaison specialists. Within a few days, the reinforced UN contingent will be split into smaller field teams that will fan out to the Syrian weapons sites and labs. The exact number of these sites isn’t known, though media put it at 25 facilities. To cross the lines between antagonists in the civil war, inspectors will rely on UN officials based in Syria who have contacts with most parties in the conflict and are expected to negotiate safe passage.

Arms production sites are reported to stand high atop the list. The UN resolution envisages the elimination of all chemical production and mixing plants, including equipment used for filling shells with nerve agents or sulphur mustard gas, by November 1. The plan is to amass the Syrian arsenal in a couple of major locations where mobile chemical neutralization plants and incinerators can be used to decommission it.

Officials stress that everything will be done in conjunction with the Syrian government, which has already proven its willingness to cooperate with international monitors to relieve the world of its share of deadly chemical toxins. The deadline for destroying the whole arsenal has been set at mid-2014.

Voice of Russia, Guardian

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Russia Vows All Assistance to Syria Chemical Arms Destruction - FM

MOSCOW, September 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is ready to provide funds and personnel for future efforts to eliminate Syrian chemical weapon stockpiles, Russia’s top diplomat has said.

It reported over the weekend that a team of about a dozen of inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will head to Syria on October 1 to take the stockpiles under control.

In an interview published by the Kommersant daily on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian experts were “ready to partake in all aspects of future activities – in inspections and in administrative structures that might be set up to coordinate activities between the UN and the OPCW on site, as well as in structures that would possibly be set up to provide [the inspectors’] security.”

He also vowed financial support to the future OPCW effort in Syria.

The Russian top diplomat said it was up to OPCW inspectors to decide what types of chemical weapons should be destroyed in Syria and what should be taken abroad.

“This is up to professionals to decide. They should see everything with their own eyes and determine what poisonous substances can be destroyed on site and what [facilities] are needed for this. Possibly, the Syrians have the required facilities, although I doubt it,” he said, adding that a part of the Syrian chemical stockpile can be destroyed with the help of mobile facilities that the United States and a group of other countries have.

Lavrov added that the recently adopted UN Security Council resolution on Syria permits taking chemical weapons out of the country – a practice not envisaged by the Chemical Weapons Convention. He described the resolution, adopted unanimously on Friday night, as a “generally positive” document intended to keeps the Syrian conflict settlement within the political dimension.

He said Russia would encourage the Syrian government to observe the schedule, agreed by the UN and the OPCW, but Western powers and their Arab allies supporting the Syrian opposition should “send a clear signal” to anti-government rebels, “so that they wouldn’t dare to undermine this process.”

The OPCW’s 41-nation executive council agreed on an accelerated program for Syria's chemical stockpiles elimination on Friday night, stating that all chemical weapons should be destroyed by mid-2014. The decision requires inspections in Syria to start on October 1.

The Russian top diplomat said that Russia would press for an international conference to make Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction. The conference was agreed in 2010 and scheduled to take place last year, but preparations have stalled.

According to Lavrov, Russian President Vladimir Putin set a task to put all chemical stockpiles in the world under the international control after meeting with his US counterpart Barack Obama at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg.

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