Removal of Syria’s chemical weapons

The Heat

Later this week, a Danish cargo ship carrying tons of Syria’s deadly chemical weapons will carefully transfer its lethal cargo onto an American ship for disposal. It is the culmination of an effort that began nine months ago under an agreement negotiated by Russia and the United States to rid Syria of its chemical weapons stockpile and manufacturing capability.

Syria’s mustard gas and nerve agents will be turned into polluted water, while the remains of its declared chemical arsenal will be delivered to ports in Finland and Texas for disposal as industrial waste.

Since it began last fall, the international effort to find, verify, pack, transport and ultimately destroy the Syrian weapons has been unprecedented in countless ways.

Never before have such lethal substances been packaged in bullet-proof containers and carried on flatbed trucks through the front lines of a war zone. Never before have such weapons been destroyed at sea.

There have been setbacks, delays and arguments. On at least one occasion, as some of the loaded containers sat for months on a ship in the hot Mediterranean sun, toxic vapors leaked.

However, as Ahmet Uzumcu – the man in charge of overseeing Syria’s compliance said last week, his group cannot categorically say that Syria no longer possesses any chemical weapons. Though much has been accomplished, still more remains to be completed under the agreement.

CCTV’s Liling Tan reports from the United Nations with the latest on the removal of chemical weapons from Syria.

Follow Liling Tan on Twitter: @LilingTan

Anand Naidoo talks to Ahmet Uzumcu — the man in charge of overseeing Syria’s compliance and Director General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, to find out how much has been
accomplished and what more remains to be completed under the agreement.

CCTV’s Anand Naidoo sits down with Bassam Abu Abdullah, advisor to the Syrian Ministry of Information and the Director of Damascus University’s Center for Strategic Studies and Mohammed Ghanem, senior political advisor and government relations director for the Syrian American Council, to talk about the removal of chemical weapons in Syria and the ongoing civil war.