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Two ships loaded Syria’s chemical weapons to be buried off Crete; Greeks protest
Two ships loaded Syria’s chemical weapons to be buried off Crete
More than one thousand of chemical agents, Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, are ready to be destroyed in international waters international waters in the Mediterranean Sea between Greece, Malta and Italy. The complex international process of decommissioning the hazardous chemical weapons sarin, mustard gas and sulphur organized by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
The first stage of destroying Syria’s chemical weapons has reportedly already begun with the aid of Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Finland, UK and USA, among others.
According to UK daily Telegraph,
The first batch of the country’s chemicals safely loaded aboard a Danish cargo ship in the northwest Syrian port of Lattakia.
The chemicals at 12 sites across Syria, two of which are in the middle of battlefields, and transporting them to the port. This is the responsibility of the Syrian army, which will be guarded en route by armoured trucks provided by Russia.
They are then loaded on to two cargo ships provided by Denmark and Norway, which have also supplied naval vessels to escort the ships out of Syrian waters. Additional security at the port is being provided by Russian forces, while the US has supplied loading and decontamination equipment, China has supplied ambulances, and Finland has supplied an emergency response team in case of accidents.
The Danish cargo ship carrying the first batch of chemicals has now moved back out into international waters to wait for more chemicals to arrive at the port in Lattakia. Once the cargo ship has taken onboard its full consignment it will set sail for an unnamed port in Italy, protected by a flotilla of naval vessels from Denmark, Norway, Russia and China.
When the flotilla arrives at its destination in Italy it will transfer its cargo of priority one chemicals to a US Maritime Administration ship, the MV Cape Ray. Around 150 tonnes of priority two chemicals, toxic material not dissimilar to industrial chemical agents, will be transported to the UK with the help of the Royal Navy and destroyed by a commercial company in the UK. The Foreign Office estimates the cost at less than £1 million.
US Military personnel will break them down in field stations on the ships’ internal trailer deck. (full story Telegraph)
And bury them into the Mediterranean Sea.
The graveyard of highly toxic weapons will be off Crete, west from the Chania prefecture. Reason enough for Cretans in particular and Greek sin general to protest the process claiming environmental reasons. An international petition against the dumping of the Syrian chemicals in the Mediterranean Seas has already been set up in the petition website avaaz.org:
“Dumping of 800 tonnes of chemical weapons treated with hydrolysis in the Mediterranean will cause serious pollution, environmental degradation and severe threats to public health. It does not respect local societies, international conventions and very valuable ecosystems and marine species present in the area.” (read and sign petition here)
Speaking to defense news website onalert.gr, a Greek official said he couldn’t believe that any scientist at the OPCW would like to poison a broader area among so many countries.
But Greek experts doubt that the hydrolysis method is secure enough.
According to Cretan website FlashNews.gr, it was two cargo ships that already loaded chemicals from Latakia port of Syria: ARK Futura with the Danish flag and TAIKO with Norwegian flag.
“Once loaded the two ships left towards Cyprus under the escort of UN ships.
The loading process was taking place under highest secrecy, that the ships had turned off the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and therefore they had disappeared from the marine traffic vessel position maps,” notes Flashnews.gr
Flashnews.gr obtained also several pictures from the loading of Syrian chemicals from the Royal Navy of Denmark.
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