8 hours agoUS sees Assad's fall as an opportunity to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal
Periskopi(2 years ago)
(2 years ago)The United States views Bashar al-Assad's fall as an extraordinary chance to clear Syria “once and for all” of chemical weapons used by his regime to kill or wound thousands of people in his civil war. So said a senior American official. Washington will [...]
So said a senior American official.
Washington will strongly support the efforts of global chemical weapons supervisors to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal, said Nicole Shampanine, US ambassador to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in an interview for Reuters before an OPCW closed-door session on Syria in The Hague.
Syria Joined O The PCW in 2013 as part of a US-Russia agreement and agreed to completely destroy its chemical weapons. But after more than a decade of inspections, Syria still owns banned ammunition, and investigators found they were repeatedly used by Assad forces during the 13-year civil war.
“We want to finish the job and it is really an opportunity for Syria's new leadership to work with the international community, work with the OPW to do the job once and for all” said Shampanine.
It expects that “will have much support in trying to seize this opportunity ... and to make Syria fulfil its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention” (CWC).
The OPCW is an organisation based on the treaty in the Netherlands tasked with implementing the 1997 chemical non-proliferation treaty. He supervised the destruction of 1,300 tons of Syrian chemical and toucher chemical weapons, a large part on an American ship equipped with specialized hydrolysis systems.
