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Syria can still produce chemical arms, warn Western diplomats | |||
2014-04-28 | |||
Syria maintains an ability to deploy chemical weapons, diplomats say, citing intelligence from Britain, France and the United States that could strengthen allegations Syriaâs military recently used chlorine gas in its bloody civil war.
Syria denies it maintains the capacity to deploy chemical weapons, calling the allegation a US and European attempt to use their âchildishâ policies to blackmail Assadâs government. But in a tacit acknowledgement of the original declarationâs incompleteness, Syria earlier this month submitted a more specific list of its chemical weapons to the international disarmament mission after discrepancies were reported by inspectors on the ground, officials said.
The verification of Syriaâs declaration on its poison gas arsenal and its destruction has been overseen by a joint team of the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the global chemical arms watchdog. Diplomats say Western governments have long suspected Syria did not declare all aspects of its chemical arms programme. But the envoys say they have kept silent on the issue to avoid giving Assad an excuse to curtail cooperation with the United Nations-OPCW mission and slow down an already delayed timetable for shipping toxins out of the country. With more than 90 per cent of Syriaâs declared chemical stockpiles now out of the country, Western officials have started to break their silence. âWe are convinced, and we have some intelligence showing, that they have not declared everything,â a senior Western diplomat told Reuters, adding that the intelligence had come from Britain, France and the US. When asked how much of its program Syria has kept hidden, the diplomat said: âItâs substantial.â He offered no details. Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Jaâafari dismissed the charge. âThese countries arenât really reliable and their policies towards the implementation of the agreement between the Syrian government and the OPCW arenât principled but rather childish,â he said in a mobile-phone text message to Reuters.
Jaâafari said the three Western powersâ goal was to needlessly extend the UN-OPCW mission by âkeeping the âchemical fileâ open indefinitely so that they can keep exerting pressure and blackmailing the Syrian government.â Another Western official told Reuters that while there was not 100 percent certainty Syria maintains chemical weapons, the three Western powers agreed that there is a âhigh level of probabilityâ that Syria deliberately under-reported the full extent of its chemical arms-related stockpiles. | |||
Posted by:Steve White |