Independent MEP Kriton Arsenis has launched an attack over the Greek Foreign Minister and Deputy PM’s lack of concrete assurances that plans by the the UN’s Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons near Crete in the Mediterranean Sea does not pose a threat to human health or the environment.
The MEP has raised a number of questions, most notably why the Greek Foreign Minister does not appear to have written guarantees that the closed Mediterranean Sea will be fully protected from harm during the entire process of destroying by hydrolysis the more toxic chemicals in Assad’s arsenal at sea, which include precursors to such substances as sarin and mustard gas.
The operation to remove and destroy the Assad regime’s chemical weapons is already underway. The second shipment of chemical weapons left a Syrian port yesterday following the first shipment on January 7th.
As has been earlier reported the toxic chemicals will be transported to the Italian port of Gioia Tauro. There the more dangerous substances will be transferred to the US ship the MV Cape Ray, a specialised vessel fitted with two ‘mobile field deployable hydrolysis systems’. The ship will then move to international waters to the west of Crete where it will use the chemical process of hydrolysis to convert the toxic chemical weapons (including precursors to sarin and mustard gas) into less dangerous substances.
According to the OPCW website, the resulting effluent from the hydrolysis will be stored on the Cape Ray to be subsequently transported and destroyed at ‘commercial facilities’. The organisation maintains that at no point will any substance – either the chemical weapons themselves or the effluent resulting from their hydrolysis be dumped into the sea.
However many continue to fear that the entire process poses grave threats to the closed environment of the Mediterranean Sea. Members of the scientific community in Greece such as Professor Evangelos Gidarakos, head of toxic waste research at the Technical University of Crete, raised concerns in interviews earlier this month over the use of hydrolysis to neutralise the chemicals, saying the effluent produced will likely remain highly dangerous. He said he was concerned over the lack of information over the precise nature of chemicals to be treated on the MV Ray, adding that the treatment at sea of such chemicals was a difficult undertaking with no direct precedent.
Now Arsenis has raised a number of further questions over the lack of information provided by Evangelos Venizelos over the operations. The following are among the questions raised by the MEP in his written statement:
- “What are the verifiable scientific assurances that the neutralisation of the Syrian chemical weapons by the method of hydrolysis poses no threat to human health or the environment?
- Recently the UN’s coordinator for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons Sigrid Kaag stated that only the most dangerous chemicals will be destroyed at sea, while the ‘less dangerous chemicals will be destroyed by companies in countries who have said they are willing to accept them’. Does that mean that the products of hydrolysis at sea will not reach third countries and companies? What will happen to the effluent produced by the hydrolysis at sea of the chemical weapons? Is there an official commitment by the UN that nothing will be released into the sea?
- The German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated to the UN that Germany will destroy 350 tonnes of chemical weapons. Given that Syria’s chemical arsenal is estimated to be about 1,300 tonnes and the process of neutralising by hydrolysis produces many more tonnes worth of effluent, the amount accepted by Germany is particularly small. What will happen to the rest of the chemical weapons and the effluent?
- What was the content of the letter Mr Venizelos sent together with his Italian counterpart Emma Bonino towards the head of the OPCW? For what reasons has its content never been published and when is an answer expected from the OPCW? Furthermore Mr Venizelos had requested from the High Representative of the EU to act in the name of the Council in order for their to be no doubt with regards to the protection of the Mediterranean environment by the UN and OPCW. How have the relevant reassurances been given and if they have been given in writing why has Mr Venizelos not announced them, as he did the verbal assurances given to him by NGO’s? Furthermore Mr Venizelos has stated that he is waiting to be informed by the OPCW regarding the technical details of the operation in order for it to be assessed whether GReece must react In other words will whatever reaction from the Greek government come in hindsight following a fait accompli?
- In a press conference Mr Venizelos has stated that, “for us it would be preferable if even the hydrolysis phase on the American ship took place outside of the Mediterranean which is a closed sea.” What does ‘preferable’ mean? Should it not be considered a given that Greece would not accept under any circumstances the destruction of the toxic chemicals southwest of Crete?
I urge Mr Venizelos to take the matter more seriously. In his last announcement over the subject, he stated that he had received reassuring information which came from a meeting in which three environmental groups took part. One of these is called, “Oceanica”. But given that there is no such organisation I call on Mr Venizelos to confirm whether the remainder of the information is correct and the guarantees reliable.”
While the US military claims that the process of destroying Assad’s chemical weapons poses no threat to the public, many Greeks have little faith in the environmental reassurances from an organisation that in the past has made similar claims about depleted uranium, Agent Orange and lethal radiation to name a few.