The global chemical weapons watchdog overseeing the destruction of Syria's toxic stockpile will send a fact-finding mission to Syria to investigate allegations by rebels and activists of chlorine gas attacks, the organization said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said President Bashar al-Assad's government had agreed to accept the mission and had promised to provide security in areas under its control, according to Reuters.
"The mission will carry out its work in the most challenging circumstances," the OPCW said, referring to the three-year-old conflict between Assad's forces and rebels, Reuters reported. It gave no exact date for the mission but said it would take place soon.
Accusations by rebels and Syrian activist of at least three separate chlorine gas attacks by Assad's forces in the last month have exposed the limits of a deal which Assad agreed last year for the destruction of his chemical arsenal, according to Reuters.
The accord followed a sarin gas attack on rebel-held outskirts of Damascus last August in which hundreds of people were killed, Reuters reported. Washington and its allies blamed Assad's forces for the attack, but Damascus authorities said rebels carried it out to try to force Western military intervention.
Damascus has now shipped out or destroyed 92 percent of the chemicals it pledged to eliminate, according to Reuters. Chlorine, which also has many industrial uses, was never included in the list submitted to the OPCW.
Videos released by activists of chlorine gas cannisters they said were dropped in barrel bombs from Syrian military helicopters could not be verified by Reuters but analysts say the pattern of attacks suggest a coordinated campaign with growing evidence of government responsibility.
The State Department said last week that if Syrian authorities used chlorine gas with the intent to kill or harm this would violate the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it joined as part of last year's agreement, according to Reuters.
In addition to the possible chlorine use, diplomats say Western powers believe Syria may have not have declared all of its chemical stockpiles - an accusation which Syria has denied, Reuters reported.
