Hard to remove all chemical weapons from Syria by Dec 31-OPCW

It will be "difficult" to remove all of Syria's most toxic chemical weapons from the country by a Dec. 31 deadline, Ahmet Uzumcu, the head of the global chemicals weapon watchdog OPCW said on Monday.

But the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which has been charged with supervising the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal, said a mid-2014 deadline to have all the weapons destroyed is realistic.