AMMAN, Jordan

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa met Saturday in Damascus with a delegation from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), led by director-general Fernando Arias Gonzalez.

The presidency said the meeting was also attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani, without providing details about the discussions.

The meeting followed a prior request by the OPCW for Syria’s new leadership to secure relevant sites and protect documents related to the former regime’s chemical weapons program.

The OPCW said in a statement that the meeting discussed “Syria’s obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the role and mandate of the OPCW, and the type of support the Technical Secretariat can provide to the Syrian caretaker authorities in eliminating the remnants of Syria’s chemical weapons programme.”

Arias Gonzalez emphasized that the discussions reflect a commitment to rebuilding a relationship based on mutual trust and transparency between the two sides.

“Today, we must seize this opportunity together and break that impasse for the good of the Syrian people and the international community,” he said.

Syria joined the OPCW on Sept. 13, 2013. That same month, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2118 concerning Syria’s chemical weapons following a chemical attack by the Bashar Assad regime on Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, which resulted in a mass killing.

On April 21, 2021, OPCW member states voted to suspend some of Syria’s membership rights after investigations confirmed the use of chemical weapons in attacks on Al-Lataminah in Hama in March 2017 and Saraqib in Idlib in February 2018.

Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on Dec. 8, ending the regime of the Baath Party, which had been in power since 1963.