CFR Daioy New Brief 10/28 Syria Meets Deadline on Chemical Weapons Declaration

Daily News Brief October 28, 2013

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Top of the Agenda: Syria Meets Deadline on Chemical Weapons Declaration

The international body overseeing the disarmament of Syria's chemical weapons says the Assad government has met the deadline for submitting a declaration of its facilities (LAT) and the plan to destroy its arsenal. Details were not available for the plan, which the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons must now consider in its executive council. Western states are likely to scrutinize the plan since their intelligence found forty-five chemical weapons sites (Economist) and Syria's government has identified only twenty-three. Inspectors have been in the country since October 1 and have overseen destruction of bombs, unarmed warheads, and mixing machines. But the destruction of the chemicals themselves is to be more complicated.

Analysis

"Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are proving every day that professionals can still carry out essential work where there is political will. If weapons inspectors can carry out their crucial mission to ensure Syria's chemical weapons can never be used again, then we can also find a way for aid workers on a no less vital mission to deliver food and medical treatment to men, women, and children suffering through no fault of their own," writes U.S. secretary of state John Kerry in Foreign Policy.

"Syria's huge investment in chemical weapons was originally seen by its government as a way to deter a nuclear-armed Israel rather than as a means to terrorise and coerce its own citizens. It would be surprising if President Bashar Assad does not have contingency plans for covertly hanging on to some of that hard-won capability," writes the Economist.

"All hell has broken loose in Syria, with jihadist groups competing with the regime in savagery as both unleash attacks on revolutionaries and opponents. People are begging for a solution, but all the Obama administration seems to be seeking in Geneva is a process for the sake of a process," writes Rime Allaf in the Guardian.