Syria gives watchdog more data

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Technical experts at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were reviewing Saturday a further disclosure from Syria about its chemical-weapons program.

A day earlier, the body that polices the global treaty outlawing chemical weapons said it had received a preliminary submission from Syria.

No details have been released of what is in the Syrian declarations, and organization spokesman Michael Luhan refused to give any more information about the latest submission.

Under a U.S.-Russia agreement aimed at swiftly ridding Syria of its chemical arsenal, Damascus had until Saturday to submit a full list to the organization of its chemical weapons and production facilities so they can be secured and destroyed.

U.S. officials have said that Washington and Moscow agreed that Syria had about 1,100 tons of chemical-weapons agents and precursors, including blister agents such as sulfur and mustard gas and nerve agents such as sarin.

In the aftermath of the United Nations report that concluded sarin had been used in an Aug. 21 attack in Damascus, The Hague-based chemical-weapons watchdog is looking for ways to fast track moves to secure and destroy Syria’s arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents as well as its production facilities.

However, diplomatic efforts are moving slowly. A meeting initially scheduled for today at which the organization’s 41-nation executive council was to have discussed a U.S.-Russian plan to get rid of the chemical weapons quickly was postponed Friday. No new date has yet been set for the meeting and no reason given for its postponement.

Under the U.S.-Russia agreement brokered Sept. 14 in Geneva, inspectors will be on the ground in Syria by November. During that month, they are to complete their initial assessment, and all mixing and filling equipment for chemical weapons is to be destroyed. All components of the chemical weapons program are to be removed from the country or destroyed by mid-2014.

The plan will be backed up by a U.N. Security Council resolution.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons already has overseen the destruction of large quantities of chemical weapons held by nations including the U.S. and Russia.

Russia’s Interfax news agency Saturday quoted a top Kremlin official as saying the government could drop its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad if he reneges on his commitments to give up chemical weapons.

Interfax on Saturday reported that Sergei Ivanov, President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, said Russia’s position “could change” if it was “certain that Assad is cheating” on giving up the weapons.

Ivanov emphasized that he was speaking “theoretically and hypothetically.” Russia has been the biggest international backer of the Assad regime and a longtime Syrian ally.

On Friday, government troops backed by allied militiamen stormed a predominantly Sunni village in central Syria, killing at least 15 people, while opposition forces began an offensive near Aleppo to try to cut the army’s supply route to the northern city, activists said Saturday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack on the village of Sheik Hadid occurred late Friday and that the dead included two women and a child. It said the rest were men but did not know if they included rebel fighters.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said 26 people were killed in Sheik Hadid, including some who were killed with knives. Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said at least two of the dead were stabbed to death.

The discrepancy in numbers could not be immediately reconciled.

The assault came shortly after rebels captured Jalma, another village close to Sheik Hadid in Hama province, killing five soldiers. The Observatory said fighting raged Saturday in Sheik Hadid and nearby areas.

In northern Syria, the Observatory said the rebels launched a wide offensive south of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, in an attempt to cut supplies to government forces in the contested metropolis.

The Observatory said rebels captured six villages south of Aleppo amid heavy fighting. It had no word on casualties.

Meanwhile, Syria’s main opposition group rejected an offer by Iran’s new president, Hasan Rouhani, to help in holding a national dialogue to end the Arab country’s crisis.

The Syrian National Coalition’s statement came two days after Rouhani wrote in The Washington Post that Tehran was ready to facilitate talks between Assad’s government and the opposition.

“The Iranian statement is ridiculous after all the blood that Iran participated in shedding … through its political, economic and military support to Assad,” the opposition group’s statement said.

“It is better if the Iranian leadership withdraws its military experts and fanatic fighters from Syria before coming with initiatives for the concerned parties. It [Iran] is part of the problem.” Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue and staff members of The Associated Press.