Private companies may help destroy Syria’s chemical arms
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The global chemical weapons watchdog is inviting private companies to bid to get involved in destroying Syria’s stockpile of toxic agents and precursor chemicals.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is posting a request for “expressions of interest” from companies who want a role in “the treatment and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous organic and inorganic chemicals.”
The agency, which won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, has been directed by the United Nations to oversee the destruction of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons.
The unprecedented disarmament in the midst of a civil war now in its third year was launched following an August 21 chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb that killed hundreds of civilians.
The US and Western allies accused the Syrian government of being responsible for that attack, while Damascus blames the rebels. Syria joined the OPCW and agreed to dismantle its chemical arsenal to ward off possible US military strikes.
What needs to be destroyed involves a wide range of chemical agents. A senior OPCW official said yesterday that more than 700 tons of Syrian chemicals listed can be destroyed at regular commercial facilities.
The most toxic and weaponized chemicals in the Syrian stockpile will still have to be destroyed at a secure facility under OPCW supervision.
The OPCW is considering the option of destroying the most toxic parts of Syria’s stockpile at sea on a mobile destruction facility on a large ship or barge. That option gained momentum after Albania last week refused a US request to host the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal, a serious blow to efforts to destroy that stockpile by mid-2014.
However, the OPCW official said most of Syria’s stockpile involves precursor chemicals, which have to be mixed to turn them into weapons. He said the Albania setback should not deter other nations or companies from getting involved.
“There is a need to step back and look at the whole thing dispassionately,” he said.
He said “ready chemical warfare agents” only amount to about 20 tons of the approximately 1,300 tons of Syrian chemicals that have to be destroyed. None of it is the nerve agent sarin, he said.
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