U.S. Skeptical over Syria Chemical Declaration

The United States is skeptical about Syria's declaration of its chemical weapons to an international watchdog and is still checking its accuracy, a top U.S. envoy said Tuesday.

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said President Bashar Assad remained unacceptable as a leader of Syria despite his agreement to destroy all of his banned chemical arms by mid-2014.

Syria has made a 700-page declaration of its chemical weapons sites and arms to the Organization for the Elimination of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and has met a deadline to destroy its chemical and weapons production facilities.

But many western nations still doubt that all of Syria's chemical weapons have been declared, diplomats say.

"More work of course remains to be done to ensure that the Syrian government's list of declared sites is comprehensive and that the process remains on track, particularly as we enter the destruction phase, which looks very complicated," Power commented after a U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria's chemical arms.

The U.S. ambassador told reporters that American experts are still studying the "extremely technical" Syrian document.

"We obviously bring skepticism born of years of dealing with this regime, years of obfuscation in other contexts, and of course a lot of broken promises within the context of this current war," Power said.

"You will certainly hear from us in the event that we detect non-compliance or we detect significant discrepancies," she added.

The chemical weapons destruction plan was brokered by Russia and the United States after an August 21 poison gas attack in the Damascus suburbs.

Assad's government denies responsibility. Russia, the president's main backer, has also blamed opposition rebels. But the United States says government forces staged the attack killing more than 1,400 people.

"The chemical weapons agreement and implementation has not changed the U.S. position on Assad," Power said.

"A man who gases his people and who uses Scuds and all other forms of terror against his people is not fit to govern those people.

"This deal takes away a weapon that Assad and his forces have used for tactical military advantage. This is not something he wanted and it is not something that helps him."

While the war, which the U.N. says has left well over 100,000 dead, rages on, OPCW experts have visited 21 of the 23 sites which have 39 of the 41 arms facilities declared by Syria.

Siigrid Kaag, the head of the joint OPCW-U.N. mission, would not comment on whether arms are suspected to be hidden.

"The mission is operating on the mandate provided and it works on the basis of the Syria declaration provided to the OPCW," she told reporters after briefing the Security Council on the experts' work.

Under a Security Council backed blueprint, a plan has to be drawn up by November 15 for the destruction of Syria's chemicals. Diplomats say this is still being hammered out by Russia and the United States.

Few countries have the capacity to carry out the destruction, however.

Norway, which had been mentioned as a candidate to accept the chemicals, has already said it cannot carry out the eradication operation because of the tight deadline and legal obstacles.

Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin said after the latest talks that his country would not carry out the destruction but could take part in the operation.