Syria hands chemical dossier to watchdog

21 Sep Aljazeera

Syria has submitted the first details of its chemical weapons to the international watchdog charged with overseeing their destruction, the organisation has said.

A spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Friday: “We have received part of the verification and we expect more.” The Hague-based organisation said it had also postponed a meeting on the issue scheduled for Sunday.A UN diplomat confirmed to the Reuters news agency that the details had been submitted, saying: “It’s quite long ... and being translated.” Syria is believed to possess around 1,000 tonnes of chemical toxins, and has agreed to destroy them under a joint Russian-US proposal designed to avert a US strike on Syria.James Bays, Al Jazeera English’s diplomatic editor, said the submission was very significant. “If we go back to just two weeks ago, Syria would not even say that it had chemical weapons.”

However, the timetable outlined in the Russia-US plan appears to be slipping. Under the terms the deal, the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has until the middle of next week to make a full disclosure of his chemical weapons assets.”Diplomats had hoped a Security Council resolution would be in place in time for the UN’s General Assembly meeting on Tuesday it now might overshadow the meeting.“The OPCW also has to say if it can do the work in Syria before any resolution is agreed. Security Council action is very unlikely until next week.”

Meanwhile, the Syrian regime has distanced itself from comments made by Qadri Jamil, one of three of its deputy prime ministers, who told the Guardian on Thursday that his government would consider a ceasefire if peace talks were organised.Jamil told the Guardian: “Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side.”The newspaper reported that Jamil as saying that for the government to enter talks, it would seek “an end to external intervention, a ceasefire and the launching of a peaceful political process in a way that the Syrian people can enjoy self-determination without outside intervention and in a democratic way.”

However, Jamil’s party said on Friday that his comments did not represent the position of the government, only those of his Peoples’ Needs Party.It also said that Jamil had been misquoted by the newspaper, claiming he said “stopping the violence” rather than “ceasefire”.