U.N.’s Kane calls for greater Syrian disclosure on chemical weapons
Syria must disclose documents about its chemical weapons programme and grant full access to inspectors if it wants to convince world powers it has destroyed its entire toxic stockpile, U.N.. disarmament chief Angela Kane said on Tuesday. The issue of Syria’s destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile dominated discussions at a conference of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague on Tuesday. The effort was launched after a sarin gas attack on Aug. 21 last year during the Syrian civil war that killed hundreds of civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. President Bashar al Assad’s government and rebel forces blamed each other for the strike. Damascus joined the OPCW, without admitting responsibilty for the attack, after the United States threatened military intervention. The government declared 1,300 metric tonnes of chemical weapons and dozens of production and storage sites to the OPCW last year but has not provided written documentation to support the reporting of its weapons of mass destruction. (Reuters)
[source: Reuters]