{"id":198191,"date":"2026-07-09T12:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/198191\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:34:08","slug":"syria-regains-voting-rights-at-chemical-weapons-watchdog-opcw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/198191\/","title":{"rendered":"Syria regains voting rights at chemical weapons watchdog OPCW"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n      &#8220;Following the fall of the Assad regime, the new Syrian authorities committed to fulfilling Syria&#8217;s obligations under the Convention and have since taken concrete steps,&#8221; the OPCW said. [Getty]<\/p>\n<p>Member states handed back Syria&#8217;s voting rights at the global chemical weapons watchdog on Thursday, following what they described as &#8220;a significant change in circumstances&#8221; since the fall of the Assad regime.<\/p>\n<p>Syria was stripped of its rights at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/head-uns-opcw-meets-syrias-ahmed-al-sharaa-damascus\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons<\/a> (OPCW) in 2021, after its forces were found to have repeatedly used poison gas during the civil war.<\/p>\n<p>Although largely symbolic, this sent a political signal to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/assad-regime-rejects-opcw-vote-curbing-chemical-exports\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Syria <\/a>that breaches of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, prohibiting all use of chemicals on the battlefield, would not be accepted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Following the fall of the Assad regime, the new Syrian authorities committed to fulfilling Syria&#8217;s obligations under the Convention and have since taken concrete steps,&#8221; the OPCW said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/syrians-say-opcw-report-douma-massacre-too-late\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Syria <\/a>has vowed to work with the international community to rid itself of legacy weapons of mass destruction that pose a proliferation risk.<\/p>\n<p>A Syrian official told Reuters in May that the country&#8217;s transitional leadership had located remnants of former President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s clandestine chemical weapons program, including raw materials and munitions similar to those used to carry out deadly gas attacks during the country&#8217;s civil war.<\/p>\n<p>Repeated investigations by the United Nations and the OPCW&#8217;s special Investigation and Identification Team concluded that Syrian government forces used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs in attacks that investigators said killed or injured thousands.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, Syria and its military ally Russia repeatedly denied the use of chemical weapons.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/over-100-assads-chemical-weapons-sites-remain-syria-opcw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OPCW&#8217;s <\/a>executive council on Thursday said it would continue to monitor Syria&#8217;s progress and take decisions necessary to eliminate the remaining chemical weapons inherited from the former regime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;Following the fall of the Assad regime, the new Syrian authorities committed to fulfilling Syria&#8217;s obligations under the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[8222,12627,2665,95],"class_list":["post-198191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-chemical-weapons","tag-opcw","tag-post-assad-syria","tag-syria"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116890046518993089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}