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U.S. Chides Syria on Missed Chemical Arms Deadlines Delay in Chemical Arms Pledge Criticized
(about 4 hours later)
Angered over a missed deadline in Syria’s pledge to export its chemical weapons, the United States sharply criticized the government of President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, accusing him of stalling their removal and — in a new complaint — weakening the country’s promise to destroy the 12 facilities that produced them. The United States sharply criticized Syria on Thursday over delays in the timetable for eliminating its chemical weapons, accusing the Syrian government of deliberately stalling their removal from the country to gain bargaining leverage and — in a new complaint — reneging on a pledge to destroy the 12 facilities that produced them.
The criticisms, expressed by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the United States ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based group helping oversee the elimination of the Syrian arsenal, contrasted sharply with the diplomatic decorum that had prevailed since the operation began more than three months ago. Up until January, after the first deadline was missed, the Syrian government had been widely praised for its cooperation. The criticisms reflected growing impatience with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who renounced his chemical weapons arsenal and joined the treaty that bans them after an international uproar over an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the country’s civil war.
The criticisms by the American ambassador, Robert P. Mikulak, in a statement presented at the organization’s executive council meeting at the Hague, were particularly blunt and specific. They were posted on the State Department’s website — another message that the United States wanted its criticism known outside the executive council’s chambers. Under a Russian-American deal that averted a United States airstrike on Syrian military sites, Mr. Assad pledged that the entire chemical arsenal would be destroyed by the middle of this year. A United Nations Security Council resolution, unanimously passed on Sept. 27, was meant to ensure Syria’s compliance.
Ambassador Mikulak said that since the executive council’s last meeting on Jan. 8, “the effort to remove chemical agent and key precursor chemicals from Syria has seriously languished and stalled.” Mr. Assad’s government initially cooperated with an international team overseeing the sequestering of the weapons and destruction of the equipment needed to activate them. But the cooperation began to falter in adhering to a timetable for exporting the roughly 1,200 tons of chemicals in the arsenal for eventual destruction at sea.
He said only about 4 percent of the roughly 1,200 tons of chemicals, half of them especially dangerous, had been exported from the Syrian port of Latakia — the first public disclosure of how much remains in the country. The Syrians missed the first deadline on Dec. 31 for removal of the most dangerous toxins, and are likely to miss the second on Feb. 5, when the entire stockpile is supposed to be safely out of the country. Only two small shipments have been exported so far from the Syrian port of Latakia.
Under Syria’s pledge to renounce the weapons, the most dangerous chemicals were supposed to be exported for eventual destruction at sea on Dec. 31, but the first shipment was not exported from Latakia until Jan. 7. The entire stockpile is supposed to be exported by Feb. 6, a deadline that many nonproliferation experts anticipate will be violated. A multinational flotilla has been waiting to safely transport the rest. A United States naval vessel, the Cape Ray, equipped with technology to render the chemicals harmless, on Monday began the voyage from Virginia to a southern Italian port, where the chemicals are to be transferred into its cargo hold.
Ambassador Mikulak said Syrian demands for additional equipment needed to transport the chemicals “are without merit, and display a ‘bargaining mentality’ rather than a security mentality.” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, speaking Thursday in Warsaw, expressed concern over the slow progress, and said he had telephoned his Russian counterpart, Sergei K. Shoigu, on Wednesday requesting Moscow’s influence on Mr. Assad’s government to accelerate compliance.
He also expressed American objections to a Syrian proposal that the seven hardened aircraft hangars and five underground structures used for producing the deadly chemicals inside Syria remain “inactivated” rather than be destroyed, as specified in Syria’s original pledge. “These proposed measures are readily reversible within days,” he said. Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Secretary of State John Kerry had also called his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Wednesday. “This is not rocket science,” Ms. Psaki said of the Syrian behavior. “They’re dragging their feet.”
Earlier Thursday, Mr. Hagel expressed the Obama administration’s frustration with the Syrian government over the chemical weapons issue. He spoke in Warsaw after a meeting with the Polish defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak. The American frustration was expressed two days after President Obama described the agreement to eliminate the arsenal as an unqualified success. “American diplomacy, backed by the threat of force, is why Syria’s chemical weapons are being eliminated,” Mr. Obama said in his State of the Union address.
“The United States is concerned that the Syrian government is behind in delivering these chemical weapons and precursor materials on time, and with the schedule that was agreed to,” Mr. Hagel said. The most pointed criticism on Thursday came from the United States ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the group that is helping the United Nations oversee destruction of the arsenal.
He also said he had spoken to his Russian counterpart, Sergei K. Shoigu, by telephone on Wednesday, and asked him to use Moscow’s influence with the government of President Assad to speed up compliance. The ambassador, Robert P. Mikulak, said in a statement he presented at the organization’s executive council meeting that since its last meeting on Jan. 8, “the effort to remove chemical agent and key precursor chemicals from Syria has seriously languished and stalled.”
President Assad said in an interview with Agence France-Presse last week that he partly blamed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for what Mr. Assad called its slow response to Syrian requests for equipment to safely transport the chemicals. The organization declined to comment on Mr. Assad’s criticism, but nonproliferation experts and diplomats have said privately that Syria had been supplied with everything it needs. He said that only about 4 percent of the chemicals, half of them considered especially dangerous, had been exported from Latakia so far — the first public disclosure of how much remains in the country.
Mr. Hagel did not speak to the precise causes of the delay but reiterated that Syria is responsible, under its agreement to renounce chemical weapons and join the treaty that bans them, to meet its obligations. Mr. Mikulak also said Syria’s “open-ended delaying of the removal operation could ultimately jeopardize the carefully timed and coordinated multistate removal and destruction effort.”
“I do not know what the Syrian government’s motives are, or if it was incompetence or why they are behind on delivering these materials,” he said. “What we do know is they are behind. What we do know is they need to fix this. That’s what we are all working together to address.” Mr. Assad and his subordinates have said the delays are the result of security concerns about insurgent sabotage on the routes to the port. They demanded additional equipment, including armored jackets for shipping containers, electronic countermeasures and detectors to thwart roadside bombs.
Mr. Hagel expressed guarded hope that the pace could accelerate. Under Syria’s agreement, the entire arsenal must be destroyed by June 30. “These demands are without merit and display a ‘bargaining mentality’ rather than a security mentality,” Mr. Mikulak said in his statement, posted on the State Department’s website.
“We believe that this effort can continue to get back on track even though we are behind schedule,” Mr. Hagel said. He also expressed American objections to a Syrian proposal that the seven hardened aircraft hangars and five underground structures used for producing the deadly chemicals in Syria remain “inactivated” rather than be destroyed, as specified under the treaty banning the weapons.
“These proposed measures are readily reversible within days and clearly do not meet the requirement of ‘physically destroy’ as provided for by the Convention and the precedents for implementing that requirement,” he said.
Mr. Mikulak said the United States wanted the roofs of the hangars and entries to the tunnels collapsed, and wanted “the overall structural integrity of the tunnels” compromised.
In a separate development, the Swedish scientist who led a United Nations panel that investigated the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack and other suspected uses of the weapons in the Syrian conflict said in an interview published Thursday that he doubted the Syrian government’s claims that rebels had been responsible.
It appeared to be the first time that the scientist, Ake Sellstrom, had publicly expressed an opinion about which side was to blame. His panel’s assignment was to determine whether chemical weapons had been used, not who used them.
“Several times I asked the government: can you explain — if this was the opposition — how did they get hold of the chemical weapons?” Dr. Sellstrom said in the interview with CBRNe World, a specialty magazine for professionals in disaster planning.
“They have quite poor theories: they talk about smuggling through Turkey, labs in Iraq and I asked them, pointedly, what about your own stores, have your own stores been stripped of anything, have you dropped a bomb that has been claimed, bombs that can be recovered by the opposition?” he said.
“They denied that. To me it is strange. If they really want to blame the opposition, they should have a good story as to how they got hold of the munitions, and they didn’t take the chance to deliver that story.”