ISTANBUL

Syria has reinstated its permanent mission to the chemical weapons watchdog in The Hague.

The Foreign Ministry reactivated the permanent mission to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague and appointed Mohammed Katoub as Syria’s ambassador to the organization, Syrian news agency Sana reported Thursday.

Earlier this month, the ministry said that the First Committee of the UN General Assembly passed, with broad international support, a resolution highlighting a phase of positive and advanced cooperation between Syria and the OPCW.

On March 5, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani participated in a meeting of the OPCW Executive Council for the first time.

After the start of Syria’s uprising in 2011, the forces of President Bashar Assad, who was ousted last year, carried out 217 chemical attacks, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

These include the major chemical massacre in Eastern Ghouta and Muadhamiyat al-Sham of Aug. 21, 2013, which killed more than 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of women and children, and injured more than 10,000 others.

The Syrian regime joined the OPCW on Sept. 13.

The same month, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2118 on Syria’s chemical weapons.

The OPCW and the UN then formed a joint mission to inspect chemical weapons in Syria.

The organization announced the completion of the mission on Aug. 19, 2014, after destroying the Assad regime’s declared chemical weapons stockpile.

However, it later became evident that only the chemical weapons at sites declared by the regime had been destroyed, as regime forces proceeded to carry out numerous chlorine and sarin attacks in several cities, most notably Aleppo.

On April 21, 2021, the state parties to the OPCW voted to suspend some of Syria’s membership rights.

This decision came after the organization confirmed the use of chemical weapons in attacks in the town of Latamneh in the Hama province in 2017, and in the city of Saraqib in the Idlib province in 2018.