Saturday, September 21, 2013
Syria
Watchdog: Syria submits 'initial disclosure' of chemical weapons program
September 20, 2013 -- Updated 2118 GMT (0518 HKT)
Syria moving chemical weapons
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is the world's chemical arms watchdog
- The normal 60-day process for declaring arms is being cut to seven days for Syria
- This fast-tracking of the disclosure of chemical weapons is "irregular," an official says
- Secretary of States John Kerry says: "Time is short"
More details about Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons program are expected
within the next day or two, spokesman Michael Luhan said.
The international
chemical weapons watchdog has been charged with overseeing the removal
of al-Assad's chemical weapons arsenal from Syria, part of a
U.S.-Russian plan aimed at averting American military airstrikes.
The information submitted by Syria is now being reviewed by the OPCW, he said.
The group's executive
council -- which was to meet Sunday at The Hague, Netherlands -- has
postponed the meeting until sometime next week, Luhan said, because
"more time is needed" to review Syria's chemical weapons disclosure and
agree to put in place a framework for the U.S.-Russia plan.
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Could Bosnia prove a lesson on Syria?
This jibes with a
timeline in the U.S.-Russian deal forged last week in Geneva,
Switzerland, to begin destroying Syria's chemical arsenal. Under the
Geneva framework deal, al-Assad was given a week beginning last Saturday to declare the weapons program.
"This is irregular,"
Luhan said, explaining that this level of fast-tracking the disclosure
of chemical weapons "has never been done before."
The normal 60-day process
for declaring arms is being expedited to seven days "because of the
extraordinary concern about Syria's weapons," he said.
"Until now, each country
has been typical. The United States, Russia, Libya, India, none have
been in a state of war or conflict," Luhan said.
Once the group has
received Syria's full declaration, Luhan said, "we have to go through it
in detail and plan how to conduct the on-the-ground inspection mission,
to verify the accuracy of the declaration and put seals on all the
materials to make sure they are secure."
A technical briefing on
the Syria mission that was to have been held Monday will be rescheduled
once a new date has been set for the executive council meeting.
Officials report Syria moving stockpiles
The Syrian regime is
again moving around its stockpile of chemical weapons, leaving the
United States trying to figure out what al-Assad will do next with his
deadly arsenal, officials say.
CNN has learned that the
U.S. intelligence community is closely watching the latest developments
as diplomats try to form a plan for al-Assad to relinquish those
stockpiles to international control.
One U.S. official with
access to the latest intelligence on Syria tells CNN the regime "is
actively moving its stockpiles in the last 24 hours."
The official, speaking
on condition of anonymity, says the latest intelligence information
shows there is movement at additional sites beyond what the United
States had observed in the last two weeks.
"It's continuous but still unclear what they are really doing," the official said.
Officials don't know whether the weapons are being moved to account for the stockpiles to the United Nations or to hide them.
One official confirmed
the Obama administration received specific information in recent months
from Russia that the chemical weapons are secure. That assessment came
from communications between Moscow and Damascus.
The U.S. intelligence
community also has continued to use satellite imagery, intercepts and
human sources on the ground inside Syria to develop its own picture.
The United States has no
reason to believe the weapons are not secure. But as CNN previously
reported, there is also disagreement within the intelligence community
about whether the United States knows the location of the entire
stockpile.
High-stakes diplomacy playing out
The stakes over halting
the Syrian civil war heightened after an August 21 chemical weapons
attack outside Damascus that the United States estimates killed about
1,400 people.
The United States and
other Western nations blame al-Assad's forces for the attack. Russia and
Syria say they think rebels used the weapons.
Citing international
norms against the use of chemical weapons, President Barack Obama called
for the authorization to use military force in Syria and wanted
Congress to approve that move
As the United States
threatened force to degrade al-Assad's ability to carry out more
chemical weapons attacks, a diplomatic opportunity arose between Russia
and the United States to put Syria's stockpile under international
control.
U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hammered out a
deal in Geneva last week compelling Syria to accept the agreement.
Speaking ahead of next
week's U.N. General Assembly meeting, Kerry said Thursday that while
"the complete removal of Syria's chemical weapons is possible here,
through peaceful means," urgency is needed.
The U.N. Security
Council must be prepared to act next week, Kerry said, citing the U.N.
chemical weapons report about the attack.
While the report did not
blame any side for the attack, Kerry said that it offered "crucial
details," making the case implicating al-Assad "only ... more
compelling." Russia called the report "distorted" and said it was based
on insufficient information.
Despite the diplomacy,
the United States hasn't dropped its threat of force and is wary, saying
Syria could be using the diplomacy as a stalling tactic.
"Time is short. Let's not spend time debating what we already know," Kerry said.
The United Nations
estimates more than 100,000 people have died since March 2011, a period
in which harsh government crackdowns against protesters devolved into an
all-out civil war.
Another 2 million people
have fled their homeland, and more than 4.25 million have been
displaced within Syria, the United Nations says.
Source:CNN News International
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