Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa met in Damascus on Saturday with a delegation from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), led by its director-general, Fernando Gonzalez.
The presidency said the meeting was also attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani, without providing details about the content of the discussions.
The meeting followed a prior request by the OPCW for Syria’s new leadership to secure all relevant sites and protect any documents related to the former regime’s chemical weapons program.
Syria joined the OPCW on Sept. 13, 2013. That same month, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2118 concerning Syria’s chemical weapons following a chemical attack by the Bashar al-Assad regime on Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, which resulted in a mass killing.
On April 21, 2021, OPCW member states voted to suspend some of Syria’s membership rights after investigations confirmed the use of chemical weapons in attacks on Al-Lataminah in Hama in March 2017 and Saraqib in Idlib in February 2018.
Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on Dec. 8, ending the regime of the Baath Party, which had been in power since 1963.
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