October 8, 2013 -- Updated 1557 GMT (2357 HKT)
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said in a letter to the Security
Council that the team overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical
weapons faces many grave dangers. FULL STORY
|
SARIN FAST FACTS
Syria: Chemical weapons team faces many dangers, says U.N. chief Ban
October 8, 2013 -- Updated 1346 GMT (2146 HKT)
Syria begins to destroy chemical weapons
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: A second team of experts is to be sent to Syria, the chemical weapons watchdog says
- Ban Ki-moon: Chemical weapons inspectors face a "dangerous and volatile" environment
- U.N. chief says Syrian commitment to the mission's objectives is vital to its success
- Syrians began destroying their country's chemical weapons program Sunday
The joint mission, made
up of personnel from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons and the United Nations, is tasked with overseeing the
elimination of all Syria's chemical weapons by the middle of next year.
Syrians began destroying their country's chemical weapons program Sunday under the oversight of an advance team of inspectors from OPCW, the world's chemical weapons watchdog, and U.N. security personnel, Ban said.
Syrian personnel used
"cutting torches and angle grinders to destroy or disable a range of
items," the OPCW said. "This included missile warheads, aerial bombs and
mixing and filling equipment."
A second team of experts
will be sent to Syria to "augment the advance team" of experts in the
country, the OPCW said Tuesday. It did not give a date for their
deployment.
In his letter, sent late
Monday, Ban set out the three phases of the mission: establishing an
initial presence and verifying the Syrian government's declaration of
its stockpiles; overseeing the destruction of chemical weapons; and
verification of the destruction of any and all chemical weapons-related
programs or materials.
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The teams going into
Syria, which include security and medical personnel as well as the
weapons inspectors, will have a support base in Cyprus where they can
train for and plan their operations, the letter said.
At the moment, an advance
team of about 35 personnel is on the ground in Syria, but their numbers
will eventually expand to about 100, Ban said.
They face a "dangerous
and volatile" environment, particularly in urban areas such as Damascus,
Homs and Aleppo, the secretary-general warned.
"Heavy artillery, air
strikes, mortar barrages and the indiscriminate shelling of civilians
areas are commonplace and battle lines shift quickly," he said.
Given that environment,
the mission "will establish a 'light footprint' in Syria, only deploying
to Syria those personnel whose presence is necessary in the country to
perform their tasks," Ban said.
A civilian "special
coordinator" will head the mission and report back to Ban and the
director-general of the OPCW, Ahmet Uzumcu.
Uzumcu told a session of
the OPCW's executive council Tuesday that the developments so far
"present a constructive beginning for what will nonetheless be a long
and difficult process."
Tight deadlines
The U.N. Security
Council resolution that authorized the mission set a deadline of
mid-2014 for Syria to destroy its chemical weapons or face consequences.
Under the resolution,
the international weapons inspectors must by November 1 complete their
initial inspections of all Syrian chemical weapons and storage
facilities and complete the eradication of production and chemical
mixing facilities.
The time frame for that
work is "very short," Ban said, especially given the complexity of the
operation and the ongoing conflict.
But, he said, the final
phase of the mission "will be the most difficult and challenging." Over
the period of eight months, the team is expected to "support, monitor
and verify the destruction of a complex chemical weapons programme
involving multiple sites spread over a country engulfed in violent
conflict."
This includes about
1,000 metric tons of "chemical weapons, agents and precursors that are
dangerous to handle, dangerous to transport and dangerous to destroy,"
he said.
The inspectors will
sometimes have to cross front lines and move through areas controlled by
armed groups hostile to the joint mission's objectives, Ban added.
The time frame for the
phase would be ambitious in the most peaceful of circumstances, he said,
but the current conditions make it "an operation the likes of which,
quite simply, have never been tried before."
Syrian commitment is key, says Ban
Syria, which has said it will cooperate with the international mission, has made a declaration of its chemical weapons sites.
Ban said the success of
the joint mission would "first and foremost" depend on a "sustained,
genuine commitment" from the Syrian government to fulfill its
obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and cooperate with the
inspectors.
He also called for any
states with influence over the various sides in the conflict to support
the international mission and ensure the safety of its personnel. The
only way to bring an end to the "appalling suffering" of the Syrian
people and end the crisis is through a political, not military, process,
Ban added.
U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Syria in a
15-minute conversation Tuesday on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation in Indonesia.
The pair spoke about the
U.N. resolution on destroying Syria's chemical weapons, according to a
senior State Department official, as well as the need to move forward on
scheduling peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, involving all parties in
the conflict.
There has been some skepticism over whether Syria will give up its entire chemical weapons arsenal.
A defected Syrian
brigadier general, Zaher al-Sakat, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour last
week that in addition to four secret locations within Syria, the regime
is currently transferring chemical weapons to Iraq and Lebanon, an
allegation that the commander of the opposition Free Syrian Army, Gen.
Salim Idriss, also recently made to Amanpour. Iraq and Lebanon have
denied the claims.
The U.N. resolution,
which capped a month of dramatic diplomacy, was based on a deal struck
between the United States and Russia that averted an American military
strike over allegations the Syrian government used sarin nerve gas in an August 21 attack on a Damascus suburb.
U.S. officials said at least 1,400 people died in the attack. Syria denied responsibility, blaming rebel forces.
CNN's Joe Sterling and Larry Register contributed to this report.
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