600 tons of Syrian chemical weapons neutralized — OPCW
Director General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Ahmet Uzumcu on Tuesday confirmed the neutralization of chemical arms onboard the US ship Cape Ray. ● Uzumcu said all the 600 metric tons of most dangerous substances had been destroyed. "This ends a crucial stage in the complex international maritime operation to remove and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile," he said. Five hundred and eighty-one tons of precursor chemical for sarin gas and 19 tons of mustard gas were neutralized with two Field Deployable Hydrolysis Systems (FDHS) installed on the Cape Ray. The chemicals were mixed in the FDHS units with fresh water and reagents, and then the mixture was heated to reduce the chemicals' toxicity by at least 99.9%, according to the director general.