Chemical weapons fears

The U.S. and UN remain concerned that the Assad regime still has stocks of chemical weapons. U.S. envoy to the UN Security Council Samantha Powers, after a briefing on U.S. ship Cape Ray’s completed destruction of Syria’s most dangerous declared chemicals and discussed plans to destroy the remaining chemical weapons production facilities:

I want to stress that much more work still needs to be done on Syria’s chemical-weapons program. We must ensure that the Syrian government destroys its remaining facilities for producing chemical weapons within the mandated time frames and without the repeated delays by the Assad regime that plagued earlier removal efforts.

Sigrid Kaag, UN special coordinator on the joint mission to eliminate Syria’s declared chemical-weapons program, says that all of the country’s primary chemical weapons have been destroyed but 12 weapons production facilities have yet to be decommissioned, and there are questions over the regime’s original declaration:

There are still some discrepancies or questions that are being asked. It’s a discussion that’s continuing in Damascus as well as the Hague.