US sees Assad's fall as chance to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal 'once and for all'

The United States sees the fall of Bashar al-Assad as an extraordinary chance to rid Syria "once and for all" of chemical weapons that killed or injured thousands of people in its civil war, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

Washington will strongly back efforts by the global chemical weapons watchdog to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal, Nicole Shampaine, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told Reuters in an interview ahead of a closed-door OPCW session on Syria in The Hague.

At the meeting due to begin at 1430 GMT, the OPCW's chief was expected to seek approval from key member states for funding and technical assistance to implement a time-consuming chemical nonproliferation process in Syria.

Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 under a U.S.-Russian deal and agreed to eliminate its chemical arsenal. But after more than a decade of inspections, Syria still possesses banned munitions and investigators found such weapons were used repeatedly by President Assad's forces during the 13-year civil war.



Reuters