Germany destroys Syria’s toxic chemicals

Germany has destroyed 370 tons of Syria’s chemical weapons, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced late on Monday.

“A remarkable international collaboration has enabled us first to secure the chemical weapons arsenal of the Syrian regime which was revealed in 2013, then to safely transport them abroad and now also to destroy them,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

Toxic material, which had already been neutralized onboard the specially equipped U.S. vessel “MV Cape Ray” in the Mediterranean in July and August 2014, had been brought to Munster in northwestern Germany last September for a final incinerating process.

The German Foreign Ministry said that the final destruction of the chemicals concluded on April 30 at GEKA, a state-owned company responsible for disposing of chemical warfare agents.

Experts from the Intergovernmental Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons monitored the process.

While 98 percent of Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpile has been destroyed, the failure by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to fully declare and destroy its entire program remains a concern for the international community.

Last month, Germany and its G7 partners slammed the continued use of chemical weapons in Syria against civilians.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the continued use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon by the Assad regime,” G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement on April 15, following their meeting in northern German city of Lubeck.

“The use of toxic chemicals as chemical weapons in Syria inter alia violates the Chemical Weapons Convention as well as UNSC Resolutions 2118 and 2209. We remain united in our determination to hold accountable those responsible for such inhumane acts,” the ministers said.