NEW YORK CITY: Syria’s ambassador to the UN announced on Thursday the start of what he described as a historic process: the destruction of chemical weapons materials uncovered since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
Ibrahim Olabi told the Security Council it marked the first time in more than a decade that such materials had been destroyed on Syrian soil.
“This is the very first destruction process since we have been liberated from the previous regime,” he said, and proof that a situation which “for years constituted the source of danger to Syrians and to the world” could instead become “a model of what diplomacy, coupled with determination and genuine political will and international cooperation, can achieve on the ground.”
Olabi told council members this cooperation represented more than simply technical progress; it reflected “a profound political transformation in Syria’s approach to safeguarding the multilateral system,” at a moment when a state “at the heart of a conflict-ridden Middle East” was choosing, on its own, to return to the international fold “through the gateway of responsibility.”
Syria, he said, was “safeguarding this international system through actions, deeds not words.”
However, he warned that repeated Israeli attacks on Syria have impeded the destruction process “at certain stages,” at times bringing it to “a complete halt” and forcing the cancellation of planned inspection visits, while exposing Syrian and international teams working at the sites to danger.
“We cannot safeguard the security of the region if our security is exposed to attacks at the hands of Israel,” which was “flouting” regional security and breaching international conventions the council itself had endorsed, he said.
The new authorities in Syria inherited the responsibility for dealing with the chemical weapons from the former regime, he said, “even though it is not our legacy.” He called on the international community to at the very least refrain from undermining the ability of Damascus to carry out the work “on its behalf,” and appealed to the council to take action to prevent Israeli strikes from derailing the disarmament effort.
The sarin attack in Ghouta on Aug. 21, 2013, was the deadliest chemical weapons assault of the Syrian civil war. Rockets carrying the chemical agent fired into the eastern and western suburbs of Damascus killed at least 1,144 people, according to a 2026 tally by the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Other research puts the toll as high as 1,466, and thousands were injured. A UN investigation later that year confirmed the use of sarin against civilians “on a relatively large scale.” The attack drew international condemnation, and an agreement between the US and Russia to dismantle Syria’s declared chemical arsenal.
Rights groups say the Ghouta strikes were not an isolated incident, and well over 200 chemical attacks under the Assad government were documented during nearly 14 years of war.
Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN’s high representative for disarmament affairs, gave the council a detailed technical update on the process in Syria, crediting sustained cooperation between the new authorities in Damascus and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for the progress that has been made.
She said an OPCW team verified in August the irreversible destruction of 42 aerial bombs, which marked “the first time since 2014” that the watchdog had verified the destruction of chemical munitions in Syria.
The milestone followed an OPCW deployment in May that uncovered previously undeclared Assad-era chemical weapons, prompting Damascus in June to amend its original declaration to include an additional production facility, a chemical used in nerve-agent manufacturing, empty munitions, and two storage sites in Al-Qutayfah and Homs.
The OPCW’s Executive Council approved facility agreements for those two sites in July, along with a verification plan for destroying Category 3 weapons at Al-Qutayfah, clearing the way for the destruction activity that has now begun.
Nakamitsu said the Syrian government had “mobilized substantial resources to facilitate and support OPCW deployments” during visits, interviews and sample collection by the organization’s technical secretariat.
Citing comments by the OPCW’s director-general, she said the newly verified destruction was “a result of the close collaboration between the Syrian government and the OPCW Technical Secretariat.”
The Executive Council, she noted, also voted in July to reinstate Syria’s rights and privileges under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and encouraged Damascus to continue to progress “as expeditiously as possible” toward the identification, declaration and destruction of any remaining chemical weapons.
Nakamitsu invoked the 13th anniversary commemoration of the Ghouta victims last month as “a stark reminder” that the use of chemical weapons was intolerable, under any circumstances, and impunity for those who use them was equally unacceptable.
She urged council members “to unite and show leadership in providing the support that this unprecedented effort requires,” and reaffirmed the UN’s backing for the independence and impartiality of the OPCW.