A U.S. naval ship sailed to an Italian port where deadly chemical weapons from Syria will be transferred and destroyed.
The MV Cape Ray will be at the Gioia Tauro port in Italy for around two weeks, reported the Associated Press. The cargo ship is loaded with sophisticated equipment to destroy dozens of Syrian chemical weapons.
The 197.5m ship has been equipped with two large portable hydrolysis systems designed to deactivate lethal chemical agents in Syria's arsenal, reported SBS citing AP. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wrote to Captain Rick Jordan and the 135-member crew telling them they were embarking on a "historic mission." "You are about to accomplish something no one has tried," Hagel wrote in the letter released by the Defense Department. "You will be destroying at sea one of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical weapons and helping make a safer world," he wrote.
The chemical weapons include raw materials for making sarin and mustard gas. These will be destroyed on board the Cape Ray at sea. According to the officials, around 700 tons of chemical arsenal will be destroyed.
The UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons issued a statement saying that a second consignment of chemical weapons today was loaded onto Danish and Norwegian ships at the port of Latakia in Syria.
Last year, the UN Security Council supported a US-Russian move to destroy Syria's chemical weapons.
According to AP, US and Russia agreed to destroy the chemical by mid-2014 after the confirmed use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on Aug. 21 that killed at least 1,400 people.
