| New York Times | - |
Published: October 27, 2013. GENEVA - Syria
submitted a formal declaration of its chemical weapons program and
plans for destroying its arsenal three days ahead of the deadline, the
international chemical weapons watchdog said on Sunday.
Syria Meets Deadline for Arms Destruction Plan
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: October 27, 2013
GENEVA — Syria submitted a formal declaration of its chemical weapons
program and plans for destroying its arsenal three days ahead of the
deadline, the international chemical weapons watchdog said on Sunday.
Mohamed Abdullah/Reuters
United Nations chemical weapons experts collected samples last August in Damascus. More Photos »
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Norway Rejects U.S. Request to Help Destroy Syrian Chemical Weapons (October 26, 2013)
The watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
which is charged with monitoring and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons
program, said that it received the Syrian submission on Thursday and
that the agency’s Executive Council would consider the declaration’s
“general plan of destruction” by Nov. 15.
It was not immediately clear, however, whether the declaration’s listing
of Syria’s chemical weapons sites was exhaustive, an important test of
President Bashar al-Assad’s willingness to cooperate with the program to
eliminate the country’s chemical weapons infrastructure and arsenal.
Says that such declarations are confidential, the chemical weapons
agency declined to disclose or discuss the contents of the Syrian
document.
American officials said in September that Syria’s chemical weapons
program included at least 45 sites. But when Syria submitted a
preliminary declaration of its chemical weapons program that month, it
declared only 23 sites.
The State Department has never fully explained the discrepancy. Some of
the gap, American officials have suggested, may reflect efforts by the
Syrians to consolidate their chemical weapons stocks, as well as the
haste in which the Assad government compiled its initial list.
But American officials have also suggested that Syria’s preliminary declaration was not complete and stressed the need for the Assad government to do better in the formal declaration.
“It is of the greatest importance that that document be complete,” a senior State Department official this month.
The United States has a number of ways to make its concerns about Syrian
compliance known, including by direct contact with the Syrian
officials. In the main, however, the Obama administration is counting on
the Russians to use their influence with Mr. Assad to persuade him to
comply.
The initiative to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program came from
the Russians, who were looking for a way to protect the Assad government
from an American-led airstrike that the White House had threatened
after the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in a
suburb of Damascus on Aug. 21.
American and Russian officials hammered out the details of a disarmament
plan in Geneva in September. Later that month, the United Nations
Security Council adopted a resolution that required Syria to give up its arms.
That measure noted that if Syria failed to cooperate, the Security Council could take measures under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter,
the strongest form of a council resolution. Such steps could include
economic sanctions or even military action. Before any action could be
taken, the issue would have to return to the Security Council for
further deliberations; Russia, like the other permanent members, holds a
veto on the council.
Syria’s declaration arrived as the chemical weapons agency, which is
based in The Hague, said its inspectors had visited 19 of the 23
chemical weapons sites that Syria initially listed and had completed the
destruction of equipment for mixing chemical agents and loading weapons
at the sites.
Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the agency, told reporters last week that
by Thursday, Syria would “no longer have the capability to produce any
more chemical weapons, and it will no longer have any working equipment
to mix and to fill chemical weapons agent into munitions.”
Patricia Lewis, research director for international security at Chatham
House in London, said in a phone interview that “the priority for the
inspectors was to prevent another mass attack” using chemical weapons.
“They have clearly achieved a large proportion of what they needed to do in that respect,” she added.
The goal of eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and
capabilities by mid-2014, however, remains a formidable one.
With inspectors moving toward completing the first round of the program,
attention is shifting to the task of destroying an arsenal estimated to
include 1,000 tons of precursor chemicals and nerve agents.
The United States has proposed shipping part of Syria’s chemical stocks
for destruction to other countries and has approached a number of
governments.
The complexity of such arrangements became apparent last week, when Norway said it had turned down
an American request that it participate, citing “time constraints and
external factors, such as capacities, regulatory requirements.”
Norway’s foreign minister, Boerge Brende, said the country lacked the
necessary equipment and the mid-2014 deadline was too tight.
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