Syria Chemical-Weapons Deadline Likely to Be Missed

Dec. 30, 2013 1:48 p.m. ETThe group charged with overseeing the dismantling of Syria’s chemicals-arms program is set to miss Tuesday’s deadline for removing the most dangerous weapons from the country because of volatile security conditions and various logistical challenges.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemicals Weapons and the United Nations said over the weekend that the year-end deadline for removing the most dangerous arms, which include mustard gas, sarin and VX, likely wouldn’t be met. An OPCW spokesman confirmed that remained the case on Monday.
The OPCW said the delay, which was widely expected, was due to a range of factors “not least the continuing volatility in overall security conditions, which have constrained planned movements.” The OPCW said bad weather and the logistical challenges of lining up safe transport of the weapons had contributed to the delay.
No new deadline has been set to carry out and complete the work, the OPCW spokesman said. The situation will be reassessed at a meeting of the OPCW’s executive board on Jan. 8. The same day, OPCW-UN Special Coordinator Sigrid Kaag will provide an update to the U.N. Security Council on the work.
Under the OPCW-approved plan, the most dangerous category of Syria’s chemical weapons were to be transported to the port of Latakia, where they would be shipped on commercial vessels provided by OPCW members. They are then supposed to be loaded onto a U.S. ship and destroyed at sea.
The OPCW still hopes less-lethal weapons, which make up more than half of Syria’s chemical arsenal, will be destroyed on the territories of willing countries by private companies.
On Saturday, the spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement there would be “a limited delay” in the transport of the most dangerous weapons out of Syria.
However Mr. Ban’s spokesman said the joint OPCW-UN mission would continue working “intensively” with the Syrian government “to begin safe and secure removal and transportation operations as soon as possible.”
The OPCW’s campaign in Syria was set out in a U.S.-Russian agreement following an Aug. 21 chemical attack near Damascus that the U.S. said killed more than 1,400 people. Under the plan, the OPCW must oversee the elaborate task of supervising the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, estimated at roughly 1,000 tons, within the first half of 2014.
The OPCW met its Nov. 1 deadline for destroying critical chemical weapons production equipment, which the Netherlands-based organization said means Syria cannot produce new weapons.
—Naftali Bendavid contributed to this article
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com

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