Syria begins destroying Assadera chemical weapon materials

UNITED NATIONS

People sit across from a poster depicting Syria's president Bashar al-Assad in a gas mask during an event in the rebel-held northern city of Afrin, on August 20, 2023. (AFP Photo)

Syria has begun destroying chemical weapon materials identified by an international watchdog, the country’s U.N. envoy said on Sept. 3, signaling a major step forward since the 2024 ouster of autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad.

“This is the very first destruction process since we have been liberated from the previous regime,” Ibrahim Olabi told the Security Council. “It’s also the first of its kind to destroy chemical materials on Syrian territory for over a decade.”

In 2021, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) took the unprecedented step of stripping Syria of its voting rights after finding its air force had used nerve agent sarin and chlorine gas on its own people.

But since Assad’s overthrow, the new authorities in Damascus have vowed to cooperate with the OPCW to destroy the chemical weapons the former president was repeatedly accused of using during Syria’s 13-year civil war.

“We aim at protecting the Syrian people so that such weapons will not fall into the wrong hands,” Olabi said on Sept. 3.

He added that his country was “also protecting the world and the region through such work. Every site that is secured, every ammunition that is identified, does not merely remove a danger to Syria, but the entire world.”