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Syria submitted chemical arms destruction plan on time: OPCW

Syria has filed details of its poison gas and nerve agent programme and an initial plan to destroy it to the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, the organisation announced on Sunday.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a statement that Syria completed its declaration on Thursday, as part of a strict and ambitious timeline that aims to destroy the lethal stockpile by mid-2014.

The Hague-based group said such declarations by member states “provide the basis on which plans are devised for a systematic, total and verified destruction of declared chemical weapons and production facilities.”

Such declarations made to the organisation remain confidential and no details of Syria’s programme were released.

Syria already had given preliminary details to the OPCW when it said it was joining the organisation in September in a move that warded off possible US military strikes in the aftermath of an August 21 chemical weapon attack on a Damascus suburb. Syria denies responsibility for the deadly attack.

OPCW inspectors were hastily dispatched to Syria this month and have visited most of the 23 sites Damascus declared and begun overseeing destruction work to ensure that machines used to mix chemicals and fill munitions with poison gas are no longer functioning.

Syria is believed to possess around 1,000 metric tonnes of chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin.

It has not yet been decided how or where destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons will happen. Syria’s declaration includes a general plan for destruction that will be considered by the OPCW’s 41-nation executive council on November 15.

Norway’s foreign minister announced on Friday that the country had turned down a US request to receive the bulk of Syria’s chemical weapons for destruction because it doesn’t have the capabilities to complete the task by the deadlines given.