On 7 October 2013, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that the Joint Mission would eventually have about 100 personnel in Syria, with a support base in Cyprus.
[5] The Executive Council decision set out an accelerated program for achieving the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons by mid-2014.
It required inspections in Syria to commence from 1 October 2013 and called for deadlines for destruction which were to be set by the Executive Council by 15 November.
The decision was informed by the Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons, reached by Russia and the United States on 14 September, and facilitated the request by the Syria that the Chemical Weapons Convention be applied ahead of the formal entry into force of the Convention for Syria on 14 October.
[6] The OPCW-UN Joint Mission in Syria was formally established on 16 October 2013.,[7] to oversee the timely elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons program in the safest and most secure manner possible.