A United Nations spokesman announced Tuesday that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad allowed U.N. investigators into his country to inspect incidents of alleged chemical weapons use, Bloomberg reported.
"The Mission will travel to Syria as soon as possible to contemporaneously investigate three of the reported incidents, including Khan al-Asal," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.
Of the three incidents, the attack in Khan al-Asal in March was responsible for 30 deaths.
The team of investigators will determine if a chemical weapon was used and if so, which specific kind. They will not be determining who is responsible.
President Barack Obama, who has supported rebel forces in Syria whom are not linked to Muslim extremists, has specifically stated that any use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would cross a "red line" for the U.S.
The conflict in Syria began in 2011 after rebellions across several Arab states. In a conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in July, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon estimated that over 100,000 people have been killed in Syria so far and millions have been displaced as a result.
Assad came to the agreement with the U.N. after talks last week in Damascus with Angela Kane, U.N. High Representative of Disarmament Affairs and Ake Sellstrom, head of a U.N. team of chemical weapons experts.
Sellstrom's team, created in March, has not been able to look at evidence thus far to determine what may have happened during the incidents. There is no knowledge of whether or not any chemical weapon remains at the scenes of the alleged incidents.
After Secretary General Ban Ki-moon agreed to an investigation in March, he noted this should "serve as an unequivocal reminder that the use of chemical weapons is a crime against humanity."
