OPCW expects Syrian CW declaration within 24 hours

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Wednesday said Syria must submit its initial declaration and general plan of destruction of its chemical weapons arsenal to the OPCW by 27 Oct. "OPCW experts are working with the Syrian authorities to prepare the initial declaration, which will include the general plan of destruction. We expect to receive Syria's initial declaration within the next 24 hours, in accordance with the deadline of the EC decision, "Michael Luhan, OPCW spokesman, told a press conference at the Hague. He noted that the OPCW experts have visited 18 of 23 disclosed sites in Syria as of Tuesday. "We are reaching the end of this first stage, this 30 day period constituting the month of October basically, during which we need to verify the CW programme by staging visits to all of the disclosed sites, those 23 sites that I mentioned, " said the spokesman. Luhan said Syria needs to complete "the functional destruction of all the critical equipment for its chemical weapons production and mixing and filling equipment. So we are now entering week 4, the final week of that." Inspectors are currently working in 3 teams, with "good access" to sites thus far , he noted. OPCW has currently 27 staff members in Syria plus 1 in Lebanon for movement A joint OPCW/UN operations planning team has been deployed to Cyprus to work on logistics