The Military Implications of the Syrian Crisis: The Chemical Weapons Dimension
Joint Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Security and Defence (SEDE) Committee of the European Parliament Brussels, 26 September 2013 Statement (PDF) by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders 1. Mister Chairman, Members of the Foreign Affairs and Security and Defence Committees, I am honoured to address you today on the question of chemical weapons (CW) and disarmament in Syria. I understand that several of my recent writings on the subject have been made available to you as background information, and I will therefore limit myself to highlighting some key issues. 2. On 21 August, the world woke up …
Internationalisation of Syria’s chemical weapon stockpile?
The idea of internationalising Syria’s stockpile is doable, but what would it take? Some first thoughts to launch an international and constructive discussion by Jean Pascal Zanders and Ralf Trapp Yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov launched an idea—in the meantime accepted by Syria—based on an offhand remark by US Secretary of State that Syria might avoid punitive military strikes if it were to ‘turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week’. He said: We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international …