Chemical weapons watchdog criticises Syria over 19 issues

United Nations: The global chemical weapons watchdog criticised Syria for failing to declare a chemical weapons production facility and respond to 18 other issues, while Russia accused the watchdog of conducting a political crusade against its close ally, the Syrian government.
The clash Friday came at the UN Security Council’s monthly meeting on Syria’s chemical weapons, where the director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Fernando Arias, briefed members for the first time since May and was pummeled with questions from Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia.
Arias said seven years after Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013, its initial chemical declaration has unresolved gaps, inconsistencies, and discrepancies and still cannot be considered accurate and complete.
He told the virtual meeting that one of the 19 outstanding issues is a chemical weapons production facility that President Bashar Assad’s government said was never used to produce weapons, but where the OPCW gathered material and samples indicating that production and/or weaponisation of chemical warfare nerve agents took place.
Arias said the OPCW had requested Syria to declare the exact types and quantities of chemical agents at the site, but got no response.
Britain’s new UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, said another unresolved issue in Syria’s declaration is the thousands of munitions and hundreds of tons of chemical agents that Syria has not accounted for.