The first in a series of chemical weapons shipments left Syria on Tuesday, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, marking the initial concrete step of an international endeavor to rid the country of its illegal arsenal.
The chemicals, which are bound for international waters and will be destroyed at sea, were loaded onto a Danish ship after they were delivered from two separate sites. The vessel then left the port of Latakia under the watchful eyes of the OPCW and the United Nations, who have partnered in a mission to extract the weapons.
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“This is an important step commencing the transportation of these materials as part of the plan to complete their disposal outside the territory of Syria,” OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said in a statement posted on the organization's website. “I encourage the Syrian government to maintain the momentum to remove the remaining priority chemicals, in a safe and timely manner, so that they can be destroyed outside of Syria as quickly as possible.”
Russia and the United States brokered a deal to remove the weapons after a chemical attack, attributed to the Syrian government, against rebel troops in August 2013 left 1,400 dead. President Barack Obama initially called for military action against the regime, but Congress voted the motion down.
Though the initial shipment of chemicals is now out of the country, the nation's leaders have yet to deliver them in a timely manner. The first load was supposed to arrive by the end of 2013, but the Syrian government missed that deadline. The plan is to eliminate all of the weapons by the beginning of June.
Now that the mission is in motion, the Danish vessel will wait in international waters for more chemicals to arrive. It will then transfer them to Cape Ray, an American ship, at an unidentified Italian port. Cape Ray has been outfitted with two hydrolysis systems that will use a combination of their own chemicals to render the weapons useless. The U.S. is not permitted to dock in Syria due to the tense relations between the two countries.
The extermination will happen at sea, and should take about 45 days. After that, the chemical remnants will be kept at an unknown location.
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Image: Flickr, Official U.S. Navy Page