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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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14Sep13
Syria membership in chemical weapon treaty takes effect Oct. 14
Syria has met its obligations in applying for membership in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and its membership will take effect on Oct. 14, a UN spokesman said on Saturday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Syria's accession to the OPCW, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement after the world body received additional information it had requested from Damascus.
UN associate spokesman Farhan Haq said Friday that Syria was asked to provide additional information following its Thursday submission of documents to join the OPCW, which is the implementing authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Details of the information requested were not released.
"The secretary-general, in his capacity of the depositary of the 1992 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, has today received the formal instrument of accession to the Convention by the Syrian Arab Republic," said the statement.
"Pursuant to the Convention, any state may accede to the Convention at any time," it said. "The Convention will enter into force for the Syrian Arab Republic on the 30th day following the date of deposit of this instrument of accession, namely on 14 October 2013."
Earlier Saturday, the UN chief welcomed an agreement reached by Russia and the United States on a framework for Syria to destroy all of its chemical weapons, voicing his hope that the deal will pave the way for a political solution to end the "appalling suffering" of the Syrian people.
After three days of intense negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov reached agreement Saturday on a framework to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons by mid-2014 and impose UN penalties if the Bashar al-Assad government fails to comply.
The Obama administration has argued for weeks that the United States should launch military strikes against Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons.
After Syria agreed to a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control, U.S. President Barack Obama asked Congress to delay a vote to allow time for negotiations between Kerry and Lavrov to "bear fruit."
[Source: Xinhua, United Nations, 14Sep13]
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