New York -SANA
The UN’s high representative for disarmament affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu welcomed the new Syrian government’s pledge to cooperate with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), calling the commitment “commendable.”
“Since the Council’s last meeting on this matter, the OPCW and the Syrian Arab Republic have continued to engage on how to address outstanding issues related to Syria’s chemical weapons dossier,” Nakamitsu told the Security Council.
She recalled that since 2014, the OPCW Technical Secretariat has been unable to confirm that the declaration submitted by the former Syrian authorities was “accurate and complete, because of the insufficient and inaccurate information it contained.” Of 26 outstanding issues, 19 remain unresolved.
“In this month’s report, the OPCW Technical Secretariat reported that in addition to the 26 declared chemical weapons-related sites, information made available to the OPCW suggests that there are more than 100 other sites that may have been involved in chemical weapons-related activities,” she said.
Khadega/Mazen Eyon
