Syria may still possess large chemical warfare quantities, world chemical watchdog says

Syria could be possessing large quantities of banned chemical warfare agents, the international chemical watchdog has suggested.

According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), it is “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile.

In 2013, following a chemical gas attack which killed over 1,400 people near the capital, Damascus, and allegedly committed by the Assad regime, Syrian authorities agreed to join the OPCW, claiming to have depleted their chemical weapons stockpile.

Over the years since then, however, the chemical watchdog has repeatedly raised suspicions of the regime’s potential harbouring of its stockpile, and has even accused Damascus of continued chemical attacks on civilians.

Those suspicions have again now been raised over Syria’s lack of transparency on the issue, with the OPCW’s Director-General, Fernando Arias, telling delegates at the organisation’s annual meeting that “despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed”.

He added that “since 2014, the [OPCW] Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled” in regard to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria.

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