VIENNA (Reuters) — The removal of deadly
toxins from Syria under an international effort to rid the nation of its
chemical arsenal will likely miss a December 31 deadline, the global
chemical arms watchdog said.
Bad weather and shifting battlefronts in Syria's civil war have
delayed the delivery of essential supplies to sites where the toxins
are being prepared to be sent to Latakia port, the Organisation for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said.
"A delay will probably occur," Franz Krawinkler, the OPCW's
logistics head told Austrian ORF state television on Saturday.
"Because of various external influences, including the weather...
certain logistical supplies that are needed for this transport,
could not be delivered in time."
Syria has agreed to abandon its chemical weapons by next June under
a deal proposed by Russia and hashed out with the United States,
after an August 21 sarin gas attack that Western nations blamed on
President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Damascus agreed to transport the "most critical" chemicals,
including around 20 tons of mustard nerve agent, out of the northern
port of Latakia by December 31 to be safely destroyed abroad away
from the war zone.
A Russian diplomat was also quoted as saying on Friday that the
deadline would be missed because the toxins that can be used to make
sarin, VX gas and other agents still faced a potentially hazardous
trip to the port of Latakia.
"The removal has not yet begun," Russia's RIA news agency quoted
Mikhail Ulyanov as saying after an international meeting on the
chemical arms removal effort.
Russia, which has given Assad crucial support during the nearly
three-year-old civil conflict in Syria, airlifted 75 armored
vehicles and trucks to the nation last week to carry chemicals to
Latakia.
Syrian government forces took control of a key highway
connecting Damascus to the coast earlier this month, but Ulyanov
said the trip could still be treacherous.
"They will have to be taken on dangerous roads, there are several
dangerous stretches," RIA quoted Ulyanov, head of the Foreign
Ministry's disarmament department, as saying.
He also said experts from several countries, the United Nations and
OPCW had reached a "common understanding of the main points" of a
plan to get the toxins from the port into international waters, but
gave no details.
Ulyanov said on Wednesday that while they were in Syrian waters,
Russian and Chinese warships would escort the Danish and Norwegian
container ships that are to carry the toxins away for destruction
further from the war zone.
The OPWC's Krawinkler said the weather-related closure of the main
Beirut-Damascus transport route, as well as constantly shifting
battlefronts, were hampering the delivery of logistical supplies and
lorries to the toxin storage sites.
The head of the OPCW had said earlier this month the deadline could
be missed.
(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow;
editing by Erica Billingham)
