Following hot on the heels of comments by President Bashar Assad backing the idea, the Syrian government has formally ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), obliging them to end production of chemical weapons and move toward their eventual destruction.
Syria was one of seven remaining nations on the planet that haven’t ratified the treaty, and the list will now only include six: Israel, Myanmar, Angola, Egypt, North Korea, and South Sudan.
The United Nations has confirmed receipt of the documents verifying Syria’s ratification of the CWC, and Assad has indicated that he intends to have a full list of his nation’s arsenal available for the UN within 30 days.
The 30 days is a specific requirement of the CWC, though Secretary of State John Kerry has angrily rejected it as unacceptable, and has suggested the US might attack Syria if they stick to the actual terms of the deal.
The declarations are to be made to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the deadline is 30 days after the ban enters into force, and while it is unclear if that means today, when the ban was officially ratified by the government, or after the documents are processed. Assad’s comments suggest he is treating the 30 days as starting today, however.
The process of destroying Syria’s chemical arms is expected to take years, and potentially even decades, though a better estimate will likely emerge once the data is released and the scope of Syria’s program becomes apparent. In his comments Assad expressed hope that the deal would mean an end to US threats to attack Syria, though the Obama Administration, and John Kerry in particular, continues to talk up the “military option.”
LOL @ Kerry. he's like something out of Central Casting at this point. Where's my popcorn ?
Dammit! Our chance to gas Al Qaeda down-the-tubes.
Next, just like with Libya's conventional weapons, with Syria now defenseless the US attacks and the CWs 'mysteriously' make their way to some other country on PNAC's (Clark's, FPI's,…, Bibi's) hitlist. E.g., suddenly 'rebel'-ridden, Iran is claimed to have gassed it's-own-people for no rational reason, and then it even allegedly turns out that 'the Mullah's' have been hiding, hoarding, and furiously developing doomsday devices since their savage rejection of their savior The Shah.
The Mollah Regime has not "gassed it's (sic) own people". But, it has executed them by the tens of thousands and sent hundreds of thousands of boys (some as young as 12) and young men to die in Khomeini's quest to conquer Karbala and then Qods (Jerusalem).
If that's true, it's not the apparently preferred way to sell a US 'intervention.'
American intervention is Dark, Evil, and Satanic, but intervention by the Russian Mafia Regime of Tsar Vladimir, the Mollah Regime, and Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists is downright cute and cuddly.
Yes.
Don't forget lying, traitorous, low life, degenerate, carping, ever-present, nosy, effeminate, sadistic, and indeed, cannibalistic. And it's impossible to just elect something else.
And Israel have said NO, they are not going to do it no matter what. Now Mr. Kerry what is your respond to this and all other NO-s recorded by Israeli government?
Kerry's response will be zero. He is a flunkie for AIPAC. All this (tough) talk we hear coming from Mr. Swiftboat is bluster to get AIPAC $$$ in his 2016 bid for the White House.
No one has pointed out just how strategically useless those chemical weapons are. The Syrians actually have good reason to want to be rid of them. Syria acquired these as a counterweight to Israel's nuclear weapons, but even the threat of their use is only in the context of a 1973-like conflict, to keep the Israeli nukes in their silos in case of a major shooting conventional war. There's no chance of that kind of a conflict now or in any kind of a forseeable future, so their primary reason for being is obsolete. Furthermore, they're nearly useless on a civil war battlefield. Worse, having them around means garrisoning and securing the locations where they're stored. The manpower that is currently assigned to guarding the chemical weapons would certainly be wanted elsewhere.
Permanently removing them from the threat of capture by the rebels would be a huge relief to the Assad side.
The Syrians are likely highly motivated to get rid of these things, and are going to show every sign of wanting to shovel them out of the country just as soon as possible, which will come as something of a surprise to people who think this is some kind of a trick.
Kerry and his kind will keep saying so just the same, because they're so unhappy that they don't get to kill anyone today. However, as Kerry might observe: "Day's not over yet."
With Assad de-fanged of WMD expect Russia to announce Syria joining the SCO in the near future thereby providing them with a nuclear umbrella in case of a WMD attack by another country.
I hope so because otherwise the US and their servants will have taken out Syria's deterrence.
> The process of destroying Syria’s chemical arms is expected to take years, and potentially even decades
I never understood why that would be the case. I always assumed the "loooong delaayyyys" that the US manages (destruction of its stock still being in the future) was just a foot-dragging measure or a way to push taxpayer money to the well-connected interests of destroying the stuff.
It's not much different from burning plastics; it's not even radioactive stuff. Just build the gas-turbine sized device to throw the liquid through a plasma and scrub the containers in a kiln. Just don't use the preferred military method of getting rid of stuff and bodies, the "burn pit".