UNITED NATIONS: Inspectors overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal have asked President Bashar Al Assad’s government to clarify disparities in its original declaration on its cache of toxic gas, UN diplomats said yesterday.
The envoys were citing remarks by Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint mission to Syria of the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who was briefing the 15-nation UN Security Council.
“The (UN-OPCW) team has been in Damascus seeking clarification on discrepancies in the original declaration,” a diplomat present at the closed-door meeting told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that a June 30 deadline for the destruction of all of Syria’s declared chemical weapons would not be met. French UN Ambassador Gerard Araud said on his Twitter feed that Kaag’s mission “will need to continue its activities beyond this date (June 30).” Another diplomat said Kaag had made clear the destruction work would not be completed this month.
Assad, embroiled in the fourth year of a civil war with rebels fighting to oust him, agreed last year to hand over the country’s entire chemical weapons stockpile and ensure its total destruction by June 30, after hundreds of people were killed in an August 2013 sarin nerve gas attack. REUTERS
