Destruction of Syria's chemical weapons
[1][2][3] Also on 14 September 2013, Syria acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and agreed to its provisional application pending its entry into force on 14 October.
[11] Under OPCW supervision, Syrian military personnel began "destroying munitions such as missile warheads and aerial bombs and disabling mobile and static mixing and filling units".
[15] The destruction of the most dangerous chemicals was performed at sea aboard the Cape Ray, a vessel of the United States Maritime Administration's Ready Reserve Force, crewed with U.S. Navy and civilian merchant mariners.
[33][32] State Department officials stressed that Kerry's statement and its one-week deadline were rhetorical in light of the unlikelihood of Syria turning over its chemical weapons.
[38] On 27 September, the Executive Council of the OPCW adopted a decision, "Destruction of Syrian Chemical Weapons",[9] a detailed implementation plan based on the U.S./Russian agreement.
[39] A joint OPCW-UN mission to supervise the destruction or removal of Syria's chemical arms, while its Director-General was charged with notifying the Executive Council regarding any delay in implementation.
[3] On the same day, after the signing, Syria announced that it was acceding to the Chemical Weapons Convention (provisionally applying it directly, but formally taking effect 14 October 2013),[45] and in doing so becoming a member of the OPCW.
[52] The U.S. indicated it might resort to military action outside the UN if Syria failed to comply with the Security Council resolution requiring it to eliminate its chemical weapons.
[65] Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has stressed that the Western and Arab-backed rebels in the Syrian civil war must also comply with the UN resolution, and must ensure that extremists do not acquire chemical weapons.
[11][77] Specifically, under OPCW supervision Syrian military personnel had begun "destroying munitions such as missile warheads and aerial bombs and disabling mobile and static mixing and filling units".
[78] On Monday 7 October, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that the UN-OPCW joint mission would eventually have about 100 personnel in Syria, with a support base in Cyprus.
"Heavy artillery, airstrikes, mortar barrages and the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas are commonplace and battle lines shift quickly," he wrote.
[82] OPCW director-general Ahmet Uzumcu stated in early October that completing the destruction process by the mid-2014 deadline will depend on whether temporary cease-fires can be arranged between opposition and government forces.
[81] A nine-month ceasefire to allow the OPCW to carry out the entire chemical weapons destruction process was rejected by the Free Syrian Army (FSA), according to a report in Asharq Al-Awsat (a Saudi-linked pan-Arab newspaper).
[81] The chemical weapons convention disallows movement of such deadly agents outside the country holding them, but Security Council Resolution 2118 allows extraordinary measures to be taken in Syria.
[78] The Economist magazine commented in October 2013 that the timeline was "ambitious, to put it mildly", but acknowledged it had been "worked out in consultation with American and Russians experts with full knowledge of the OPCW's capabilities".
[86] Expert opinions were summarized in Foreign Policy magazine as follows: "Taking control of [Syria]'s enormous stores of [chemical] munitions would be difficult to do in the midst of a brutal civil war.
[88] FSA official Louay Miqdad stated in early October that there were no chemical weapons in areas occupied by opposition forces, "which is something that the Assad regime itself acknowledges, while these storehouses are also not located on the front, so why should we stop fighting?
[91] On 31 October, the OPCW announced that Syria had met the deadline for destroying all declared equipment and facilities related to chemical weapons production, having visited 21 out of 23 sites.
[88][97][98] Norway and Denmark agreed to transport the chemical weapons from Syria to Italy where they were to be handed over to a United States Navy ship for destruction in international waters.
[100] The United States destroyed the highest-priority chemicals,[101] which were scheduled for removal from Syria by 31 December,[101] on board the MV Cape Ray in international waters of the Mediterranean,[67] using a U.S. Army Field Deployable Hydrolysis System.
[110] A second shipment was removed around 27 January; that same day, the U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, expressed concern over the worsening delays and assessed that Syria already has the resources required to transport the weapons promptly despite the ongoing civil war.
[114] The U.S. blamed Syria's Assad government for intentionally delaying efforts to remove chemical arms from the country for destruction, suggesting that the goal of liquidating the arsenal by midyear is in jeopardy.
Ambassador Robert P. Mikulak said that "Syria has demanded armored jackets for shipping containers, electronic countermeasures, and detectors for improvised explosive devices."
The most toxic chemicals, including sarin precursors and sulphur mustard, were destroyed by 18 August aboard the US naval vessel MV Cape Ray.
The commander of the Norwegian frigate requested that the moorings on the freighter "Taiko" were rigged with explosive charges every time she went to land in Syria so the lines could be remotely severed very quickly in an emergency allowing the ship to get to safer waters as soon as possible if any threat occurred.
When almost half of the cargo gave signs of leakage, an emergency meeting was held onboard Taiko with representatives from OPCW, UN, USA, Norway, Denmark, Syria and Finland.
[131] On 17 August 2017, Reuters published a report detailing the extent of Syria's failure to abandon chemical weapons, citing information from investigators, inspectors, and diplomatic sources.
[26] Two months later in May 2023, UN Disarmament Chief reiterated before the Security Council that Syrian declarations were blatantly false and stated that the Assad government was working to undermine the OPCW investigations and fact-finding missions.
United States, France, UK, Turkey, Japan, Switzerland and other members demanded Assad government's disclosure of all its chemical weapons stockpiles; in addition to its full co-operation with OPCW teams.
