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Second UN Team Heads to Syria, Video Shows Inspectors at Chemical Arms Sites

Second UN Team Heads to Syria, Video Shows Inspectors at Chemical Arms Sites
folder_openSyria access_time10 years ago
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Local Editor

The organization responsible for ensuring the destruction of Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons said Tuesday that it was sending a second team of experts to the country.

The new team of experts, expected to reach Damascus on Wednesday, will expand on the work undertaken by the initial team, which arrived on Oct. 1.

Both are part of what will grow into an ambitious operation that will identify, sequester and oversee the demolition of Syria's chemical arsenal over the next eight months.

This comes as a first video showing international weapons inspectors at work inside a Syrian chemical facility was released on Tuesday, a week after the disarmament experts began their mission.

                                              

The footage, provided by Syrian state television, shows several weapons inspectors in protective gear, including helmets, gloves and in one instance a gas mask, inside a building.
One inspector applies a label bearing the logo of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and a serial number to a control panel before taking a photo of it.

Other inspectors can be seen carrying out the same process.

Additional footage shows an inspector wearing a gas mask and gloves alongside large container barrels inside cage frames.
He holds a device near them and appears to be taking readings from underneath the barrels.
The video, which runs just over a minute and a half, includes no sound of the inspectors talking or describing their work. There is no indication of where the work is taking place.

OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said the footage had been released by the Syrian government, which was the only party that could describe it in detail because of confidentiality rules.
However, he confirmed the images of the inspectors at work in Syria were authentic.
"What they're doing is applying these seals and labels and so forth that's part of securing the facilities," he said.

"They go to these facilities and verify contents, they will also apply seals so that they cannot be tampered with without it being known," he added.
In parallel, Luhan said the footage appeared to show the inspectors in a "control room" that was "presumably in a production facility".

Inspectors in a joint UN-OPCW team arrived in Syria a week ago to begin the daunting task of verifying Syria's chemical arsenal and overseeing its destruction.
They are tasked under a UN Security Council resolution with destroying the arsenal by mid-2014.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team