Deadline Met: Syria's 'Critical' Equipment Destroyed

All production, mixing facilities destroyed or inoperable: OPCW
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 31, 2013 6:37 AM CDT
Updated Oct 31, 2013 7:47 AM CDT
Syria Meets First Chemical Weapons Deadline
In this photo released Aug. 31, 2013, by the OPCW, samples brought back by the UN chemical weapons inspection team are checked in upon their arrival at The Hague, Netherlands.   (AP Photo/OPCW, Henry Arvidsson, File)

All the chemical weapons production and mixing facilities declared by Syria have been either destroyed or made inoperable, in advance of tomorrow's UN deadline, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said today. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization's teams still have not been able to visit two sites located in dangerous areas, but the equipment there was moved to other sites the teams did visit, Reuters reports.

Syria "has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable," reads the OPCW statement. It adds, per the AP, that "no further inspection activities are currently planned." Next up: The OPCW and Syria need to agree on a plan for destroying the chemical weapons and toxic agents by November 15, and they must all be destroyed by mid-2014. (More Syria stories.)

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