NEW YORK
Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile will fail to be destroyed within the time frame set by the United Nations, the UN Security Council was told on Wednesday.
Sigrid Kaag, the coordinator of the joint mission by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the UN, told the council that 7.2 percent of chemical weapons material still remaining in Syria could not be destroyed until June 30, the final deadline set in a 2013 agreement.
Kaag stressed the difficulties faced by the teams on the ground, saying the complete removal of chemical weapons might even necessitate a military operation.
But she said the existing material could not be used to make sarin, a particularly deadly nerve agent that she said had been completely destroyed.
The June 30 deadline was set as part of a deal in 2013 that prevented the U.S. from taking military action against the regime of Bashar Assad, who is seeking a third term after Tuesday's controversial election.
The removal process -- a litmus test for the regime’s commitment to surrendering its chemical arms -- has been fraught with delays.
Kaag said the mission had difficulty finding secure pathways to reach the site holding the remainder of the stockpile.
The government in Damascus had missed a previous deadline of April 27th, after missing another in February.
It warned in April that the site could not be accessed because “armed opposition groups were in control of the surrounding area.”
“However,” Kaag said on Wednesday, “We (UN) are dealing with the reality on the ground as of today.
“And we keep working with the (Syrian) authorities to ensure that the removal takes place as soon as possible.”
May has passed without any activity to remove chemical weapons. The destruction takes place at sea after material is collected and carried outside Syria.
The process of stripping Assad’s regime of its chemical arms began in the wake of outrage sparked by a poisonous gas attack in August near capital Damascus that killed 1,500 people.
Syria has been gripped in an ongoing civil war since 2011, which has killed over 100,000 people and displaced almost half of the population, according to the U.N.
By Erol Avdovic
aa.com.tr/en
