Syrian regime came under pressure Monday to fill in gaps in its declaration to the world's chemical weapons watchdog amid reports of toxic arms use during its six-year civil war, triggering angry Syrian denials.
A fact-finding mission from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has issued three reports showing the use of chemicals weapons in the country in recent years, OPCW chief Ahmet Uzumcu said.
"It's very disturbing that yet again we are confronted with the use of chemical weapons," Uzumcu told the annual conference of countries belonging to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
It was "vital ... that the long-held international norm against chemical weapons remains strong and the perpetrators are held accountable," Uzumcu said.
The 1993 arms treaty binds all member states to help rid the world of chemical weapons.
Syria under President Bashar al-Assad finally joined in 2013, admitting under US-Russian pressure to having a toxic arms stockpile, and thus staving off threatened US air strikes.
Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad hit back at what he said were "false accusations" of the regime's alleged involvement in attacks, saying the "politicized findings" of the OPCW fact-finding mission aimed to "smear the image of Syria" and destabilize his country.
He insisted that 100 percent of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile had been destroyed by the OPCW.
Countries had "sent their mercenaries from all over the world and encouraged them to use chemical weapons and toxic chemical against civilians and the Syrian army," he claimed.
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