The UN's high representative for disarmament affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, on Thursday welcomed Syria's new cooperation with international inspectors as the interim government continues to grant full access to chemical weapons sites in efforts to comply with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Speaking at the UN Security Council, Nakamitsu said the evolving political landscape in Syria provides "an important opportunity to obtain long-overdue clarifications on the full extent and scope of the Syrian chemical weapons program."
She said that since March, two OPCW missions visited multiple sites and held meetings with Syrian officials.
"The OPCW team also had a technical meeting with two Syrian experts and gathered new information that had not been previously revealed by the former Syrian authorities," she added.
Nakamitsu praised the new Syrian government for allowing "unfettered access, inter-alia, to sites and people," adding that their "commitment to fully and transparently cooperate with the OPCW Technical Secretariat is commendable."
Saying that "the work ahead will not be easy," she urged Council members to "unite and show leadership in providing the support that this unprecedented effort will require."
In August 2013, the former Assad regime launched missiles carrying sarin gas, a fast-acting toxic nerve agent, on Ghouta near the capital Damascus, killing more than 1,400 people, including hundreds of children.
In October of that year, Syria under joined the OPCW.
In April 2021, OPCW member states voted to suspend some of Syria’s membership rights after investigations confirmed the use of chemical weapons in attacks on Al-Lataminah in Hama in 2017 and Idlib in 2018.
In February this year, new Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa met in Damascus with a delegation from the OPCW led by Director-General Fernando Arias Gonzalez.
Bashar al Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on December 8, ending the regime of the Baath Party, which had been in power since 1963.
