A delegation from the worldwide chemical weapons watchdog was in Damascus on Saturday for talks with Syria’s new leaders for the primary time for the reason that fall of former President Bashar Assad. The Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, had discovered proof of repeated use of chemical weapons by Assad’s authorities throughout Syria’s practically 14-year civil conflict.
Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 to thrust back the specter of airstrikes in response to a chemical assault on the outskirts of Damascus, and Assad denied utilizing chemical weapons.
Final 12 months, the group additionally discovered the Islamic State group had used mustard gasoline in opposition to the city of Marea.
The delegation, which met with President Ahmed al-Sharaa and International Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, consists of technical specialists who hope to make contact with their Syrian counterparts.
Because the overthrow of the Assad authorities, the Qatari embassy in The Hague has acted because the middleman between the brand new management and the OPCW.
OPCW Director-Basic Fernando Arias mentioned in an announcement that the talks have been “lengthy, productive and really open” and that the go to was “a primary step in direction of re-establishing a direct working relationship between the OPCW… and Syria, following eleven years of stagnation and lack of progress with the previous authorities.”
Arias mentioned the conferences had centered on Syria’s duties underneath the Chemical Weapons Conference and on the help OPCW may provide in “eliminating the remnants of Syria’s chemical weapons program.”
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The destiny of the nation’s stockpile of poisonous chemical substances spurred an emergency assembly by the OPCW days after Assad was overthrown in a lightning insurgent offensive in December. The group instructed Syria’s new rulers that they have to adjust to guidelines to safeguard and destroy harmful substances, resembling chlorine gasoline.
OPCW officers additionally voiced considerations {that a} barrage of Israeli airstrikes that hit army websites of the previous Syrian military could have led to contamination with poisonous substances or destruction of proof. The OPCW’s 193 member states are required to reveal their chemical weapons packages and dismantle them. The group, created in 1997 by the Chemical Weapons Conference, seeks to get rid of all chemical weapons. It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its work.
The group initially made some progress in cataloging Syria’s stockpile of restricted chemical substances, together with sarin and chlorine, however a deteriorating relationship with the Assad authorities made additional inspections unattainable. Saturday’s go to is the primary time OPCW officers have been to Syria since 2022.
