Watchdog: 45% of Syria chemicals removed
More than 45% of the raw materials for Syria’s poison gas and nerve agent programme scheduled for destruction outside the country have been shipped out, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has said.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced in the Hague, Netherlands, today that two shipments were loaded on to cargo ships in recent days at Latakia port.
Syria has missed several deadlines on a timetable agreed last year to eradicate its chemical weapons by June 30, but insists it will meet the final deadline. It recently pledged to remove all chemicals by the end of April.
The chemicals will eventually be transferred to a US ship, the MV Cape Ray, which has been fitted with equipment to neutralise hundreds of tons of the most toxic chemicals under supervision by OPCW experts.
