Norway Turns Down Request to Destroy Syria’s Chemical Weapons

Law Would've Banned Storage of Waste

The Norwegian government has turned down a US request to take charge of the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, saying their nation doesn’t have the capacity to do so in the timeline demanded and existing regulations would’ve made the process impossible.

The plan was to ship weapons and unweaponized chemicals to Norway to be neutralized, but Norwegian law bans the storage of imported waste, so they couldn’t have even done so unless some other nation agreed to take the waste when they were done with it.

Even then, the tight timeline the UN Security Council has imposed on the process would’ve made it impractical, according to officials, because the cold weather would make it difficult to deal with the chemicals in winter.

The US has reportedly asked several nations to take the chemicals, but so far there are no takers, and the process will simply have to continue inside war-torn Syria for the time being.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.