UNITED NATIONS, December 3 (Sputnik) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday welcomed the upcoming destruction of the remaining 12 chemical weapons production facilities (CWPFs) in Syria.
"I am pleased to note that the Director General of OPCW [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] advises of the imminent start of the destruction of the 12 chemical weapons production facilities remaining in the Syrian Arab Republic," Ban stated.
Ban said that the agreement on the destruction of the 12 CWPFs was reached following "intensive meetings" in Damascus between representatives from the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), and two Syrian companies that had been selected by the government of Syria to negotiate the terms of the contracts for the destruction of the 12 CWPFs.
UN Secretary-General also said that the process of the destruction would start soon, with the first CWPF to be destroyed by December 2014 at the latest. The destruction of all the 12 CWPFs is estimated to be over by the end of next June.
Syria agreed to annihilate its chemical weapons arsenal through an agreement brokered by Russia and supported by the United States, following a deadly chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb on August 21, 2013. Syria then consented to placing its about 1,000-metric-ton arsenal under international control, subsequently joining the UN Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
