Izumi Nakamitsu, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, told the Security Council that new Syrian authorities have expressed a commitment to cooperate with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to resolve outstanding questions about Syria’s chemical-weapons program.

Nakamitsu said the renewed cooperation provides “an historic opportunity to build a stable and peaceful future for the Syrian people” and to obtain “long overdue clarifications on the full extent and scope of the Syrian chemical weapons program.” She briefed council members drawing on regular contacts between the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs and the OPCW Technical Secretariat.

Nakamitsu summarized the technical and documentary history documented by the OPCW: previous Syrian authorities submitted 20 amendments to the country’s initial declaration, the OPCW declaration assessment team (DAT) raised a total of 26 outstanding issues over 11 years, and 19 of those issues remain unresolved. The OPCW Technical Secretariat has reported that those 19 outstanding issues involve “large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” and separate OPCW fact-finding and investigation teams (the FFM and the IIT) have attributed use in a number of incidents to the Syrian Arab armed forces, Nakamitsu said.

She told the council that the OPCW Director-General, Fernando Arias, led a high-level technical delegation that visited Damascus at the invitation of Syrian caretaker authorities on Feb. 8, and that she spoke with Director-General Arias on Feb. 28. Nakamitsu also said she met with Ambassador Alda Haq of Syria on March 3. She reported that the caretaker foreign minister subsequently appointed a focal point for chemical-weapons matters and that the focal point traveled to The Hague for in-person meetings with the OPCW Technical Secretariat to advance the OPCW’s nine-point action plan for Syria.

“In the coming days, a team of technical experts from the OPCW Technical Secretariat will be deployed to Damascus to work on establishing the OPCW’s permanent physical presence in Syria and start jointly planning deployments to chemical-weapons sites,” Nakamitsu said. She added that the OPCW technical secretariat “remains fully committed to implementing its mandate aimed at verifying the full fulfillment of the Syrian Arab Republic’s declaration obligations under the convention, decisions by OPCW policymaking organs and the Security Council resolutions.”

Nakamitsu warned the council that the work ahead will not be easy. She noted the humanitarian, security and recovery needs inside Syria and said that the OPCW and the new Syrian authorities will require “strong support and additional resources from the international community” to accomplish the tasks needed to rid Syria of chemical weapons. She urged Security Council members to provide that support and said, “The United Nations stands ready to provide support however we can, and will continue to do our part to uphold the norm against the use of chemical weapons anywhere at any time.”

The briefing recorded no Council vote or formal decision. Nakamitsu’s remarks described current and planned technical cooperation between the OPCW and Syrian authorities, reported the OPCW Technical Secretariat’s outstanding issues and factual findings, and placed responsibility for any future resource requests on the international community.