Britain calls on the Assad regime to allow chemical weapons inspectors to enter Syria

Britain demanded yesterday, Monday, during a meeting at The Hague of the OPCW’s executive council of member states that the Assad regime must admit the organization’s inspectors to enter Syria.

British Ambassador Joanna Roper said at the meeting “It is imperative that Syria issues visas… without obstruction or delay.”

Roper called on the Assad regime to reveal the fate of two chlorine cylinders identified as evidence in a chemical weapons attack on Douma town in 2018.

Recently, the Assad regime told the OPCW the two cylinders had been destroyed in an unspecified attack on one of its own chemical weapons facilities in June this year.

OPCW director general Fernando Arias said the watchdog “noted with concern” the delays in discussions with Damascus.
The regulator would not send the inspection team to Syria unless it got visas for all members.

Arias stressed that the Assad regime’s declaration on the remaining chemical weapons “cannot be considered accurate and complete” because of what he considered “gaps, inconsistencies and contradictions that remain unresolved.”

The Assad regime is under new pressure from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons after it refused to grant a visa to a member of an inspection team that was supposed to be deployed to Damascus later this month.