Chemical weapons watchdog OPCW to decide on sanctions for Syria
The global chemical weapon watchdog will this week decide whether to impose sanctions on Syria after it confirmed that the Bashar Assad regime used chlorine gas in a 2018 attack on an opposition region.
Member states of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will weigh a French proposal to suspend Syria's "rights and privileges" at the body, including its ability to vote.
Damascus is accused of failing to answer key questions after an OPCW probe last year found Syria attacked an opposition-held village with the nerve agent sarin and the toxic chemical chlorine in 2017, Daily Sabah reports.
"Syria's refusal to faithfully deliver the requested information cannot and must not remain unanswered," the European Union said in a joint statement to the United Nations last week.
"It is now up to the international community to take appropriate action."
If approved by the meeting of the OPCW's 193 member states at its headquarters in The Hague, it would be the first time the watchdog has used its maximum available punishment.
The three-day meeting opens Tuesday and diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the vote is expected Wednesday or Thursday.
Syria has rejected all the allegations and said the attacks were staged.
Damascus and its ally Moscow have accused Western powers of using the OPCW for a "politicized" campaign against them.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the OPCW and give up all chemical weapons, following a suspected sarin attack that killed 1,400 people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
But an OPCW investigation found in April last year that the Syrian air force was responsible for sarin and chlorine bombings on the village of Latamneh in 2017.
Damascus then failed to comply with a 90-day deadline by the OPCW's governing body to declare the weapons used in the attacks and reveal its remaining stocks.
France in response submitted a motion backed by 46 countries calling for the regulator to freeze Syria's rights at the watchdog.
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