Syria chemical weapons: Time running out for destruction
Time is fast running out for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons stocks, the international body in charge of their destruction says.
Syria chemical weapons: Time running out for destruction
By Frank Gardner
BBC security correspondent, aboard the M/V Cape Ray
Time is fast running out for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons stocks, the international body in charge of their destruction says.
Syria promised to hand over its remaining stocks of chemical weapons ingredients by 27 April.
The UN has set a deadline of 30 June for their full destruction, in a process that should take about 60 days.
Russia brokered a deal between Syria and the UN last year that averted punitive US missile strikes.
A crisis had arisen after the mass gassing of Syrian villagers on 21 August. Most countries blamed the attack on Syrian government forces but Syria and its allies said rebels were to blame.
Speaking aboard the M/V Cape Ray, the specially adapted US cargo ship that will neutralise the chemicals at sea, a spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said Syria needed to hand over its remaining stocks within 17 days if it was to avoid being in breach of the deadline.
As of this week, the OPCW said it had only received 54% of Syria’s declared 1,200 tons of chemical weapons, and only 43% of “Priority One” materials – those too toxic to be sent to a commercial processing plant.
That means an estimated 552 tons of chemical stocks are still on the ground in Syria, waiting to be transported by armed convoy to the port of Latakia.
The OPCW has two ships, one Danish and one Norwegian, waiting just outside Syrian territorial waters, to go in and take delivery of the remaining chemicals.
Once they have the full quota, the Norwegian vessel will take its cargo of less toxic chemicals from Latakia directly to commercial disposal facilities in Finland and Texas.
The Danish vessel, the Ark Futura, will sail to the container terminal of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy.
There it will meet the M/V Cape Ray, a specially adapted 35,000-ton US cargo ship, and spend up to 48 hours trans-loading 560 tons of dangerous chemicals, including 21 tons of mustard gas, the only battle-ready chemical weapon in Syria’s arsenal. The Danish ship will sail on to Ellesmere port in Britain to deliver 150 tons of less toxic chemicals for disposal.
The M/V Cape Ray will then undertake what has never been done before: neutralising much of an entire country’s arsenal of poison gas and its components – at sea. Below deck, the ship is equipped with two units called Field Deployable Hydrolysis Systems (FDHS) – a complex combination of pipes, valves, vats and gauges, monitored by teams of scientists, many of whom will need to wear full biological protective suits during the process.
The time it will take to “neutralise” Syria’s chemical stocks depends on how calm the seas are, using hot water and “reagents” to break down the dangerous compounds.
The whole process will be closely monitored by OPCW inspectors who say it will be done safely and in an environmentally secure way. The resulting effluent will then be taken to Bremen in Germany and Kotka in Finland for commercial destruction.
Several Mediterranean countries have expressed concern at the prospect of such dangerous chemicals being transported and processed close to their coasts. But both the US navy’s Rear-Admiral Bob Burke and OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said they did not anticipate any leaks at all.
“Letting chemicals escape from this process,” said Mr Luhan, “would be like trying to break out of a maximum security prison.”
Source: BBC.
