WASHINGTON/WARSAW: The United States yesterday accused Syria of dragging its feet on the handover of chemical weapons, a delay that puts at risk what President Barack Obama touted only this week as a US diplomatic achievement in Syria’s civil war.
Saying that just four percent of Syria’s deadliest chemical weapons materials had been removed, the Obama administration said the Syrian government’s requests for additional equipment were “without merit” and demanded action to get back on schedule to comply with an international disarmament deal.
“The United States is deeply concerned about the failure of the government of Syria to transport to (the port of) Latakia all of the chemical agent and precursors as mandated,” the United States told the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the world’s chemicals weapons watchdog in The Hague.
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s decision in September to give up chemical arms helped him avoid threatened US air strikes in retaliation for a poison gas attack near Damascus in August that killed hundreds of people, many of them women and children.
But the internationally backed operation to dispose of Syria’s chemical arsenal is now six to eight weeks behind schedule and it will miss next week’s deadline for sending all toxic agents abroad for destruction, sources familiar with the matter have said.
Delays pose a difficult challenge for Obama, who has faced criticism at home and abroad for failing to do more to quell Syria’s nearly three-year-old civil war.
Underscoring the Obama’s administration’s anxiety, the US defence secretary said he discussed the issue in a call on Wednesday with his Russian counterpart, Defence Minister Sergei Shogun, and asked him to “do what he could to influence the Syrian government to comply with the agreement that has been made” for destroying the chemical weapons.
“The United States is concerned that the Syrian government is behind in delivering these chemical weapons precursor materials on time with the schedule that was agreed to,” Chuck Hagel told reporters during a visit to Poland.
US Senator Lindsey Graham said: “Having the Russians disarm Assad is sort of like Mussolini disarming Hitler; I’m not so sure it’s going to work.”
Echoing Hagel’s comments, the White House said Syrian needs to intensify its efforts to transport chemical weapons to the port of Latakia, from where the material is being shipped out.
“Syria has said that its delay in transporting these chemicals has been caused by ‘security concerns’ and insisted on additional equipment — armored jackets for shipping containers, electronic countermeasures, and detectors for improvised explosive devices,” US representative to the OPCW Robert Mikulak said in the statement to the OPCW’s executive council. “These demands are without merit, and display a ‘bargaining mentality’ rather than a security mentality,” he added.
But the administration stopped short of threatening action if Syria failed to comply.
REUTERS
