WASHINGTON-
United States on Thursday slammed the Syrian government, accusing the President Bashar Assad of stalling the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons after a deadline was missed by Syria to export its chemical arsenal out of the country for disintegration.
“Syria must immediately take… the necessary actions to comply with its obligations,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“This is not rocket science here. They’re dragging their feet. We need them to pick up those feet and run with this and move forward in moving the chemical weapons stockpile to the ports.”
The world’s chemical watchdog, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said Wednesday that Damascus had handed over less than five per cent of the most dangerous chemicals in its armoury.
Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and the White House also expressed distress over the holdup and pushed Damascus to solve the problem.
“I do not know what the Syrian government’s motives are, if this is incompetence, or why they are behind in delivering these materials,” Hagel told reporters in Warsaw, adding that “they need to fix this.”
“The Syrian government has to take responsibility to respect the commitment that had been made,” Hagel said.
In January, two shipments of around 16 metric tonnes each of Category 1 chemicals have left Syria’s port of Latakia as part of an internationally backed disarmament plan supervised by the United Nations and OPCW.
The White House also called on the Syrian government to stick by its pledge.
“It is the Assad regime’s responsibility to transport those chemicals safely to facilitate their removal,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
“We expect them to meet their obligations to do so”, he said.
The UN Security Council backed a US-Russian deal last year to eliminate Syria’s vast chemical arsenal in a bid to avert the threat of missile strikes by Washington following a chemical attack near Damascus that western government blame on Assad’s supporting troops.
Under the deal, Syria’s entire chemical arsenal is supposed to be purged by June 30.
