Summary: Tuesday, after weeks of threats and negotiations centered on Syria's chemical weapons, a team of international weapons inspectors began the process of dismantling Syria's weapons arsenal. While in Syria, the team is staying in one of the safest areas where international officials often stay and are still seeing fighting and attacks. Thus far, the Syrian government has been cooperative through the whole process, but as the began their inspections this week, the team realized the rebel group is being less than welcoming. In fact, a third of the weapons sites described by the Syrian government are in areas that are outside the government's control. The inspectors are planning to spend the next days and weeks verifying information from the government about the location of the chemical weapons and begin the initial planning of destroying the chemical weapons production facilities.
Analysis: The cooperation of the Syrian government seemed slightly too good to be true, which the international weapons inspectors are now realizing. The large amounts of the country that are still under rebel control and attack also house some of the chemical weapons production facilities, creating an obstacle for the dismantling process. Since the rebels have been less than welcoming so far and since they have contributed their fair share to the civil war, negotiating with them may prove to be harder than expected. This also means the expected yearlong process may be much longer than a year. Many Syrian's are unsure that this is even the right way to go about ending the civil war because they believe that the chemical weapons are such a small part of the entire war. There are bigger issues, such as the 100,000 people killed so far and getting food and supplies to the ones struggling to survive in the war torn country.
Eva Holland
10/4/13
9:36pm
No comments:
Post a Comment