CRI听力:Syria Ships out 1/3 of Chemical Weapons Stockpile

The world's chemical weapons watchdog says the Syrian government has now shipped out about one-third of its chemical weapons stockpiles.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says Damascus has so-far handed over six consignments of toxic agents.

The OPCW also says two more shipments are currently headed for the northern Syrian port of Latakia.

The chemicals are due to be transferred to a U.S. cargo ship and commercial destruction facilities in the UK and Germany.

At the same time, the Syrian government has also submitted a revised plan for the removal of all its chemical weapons by the end of April.

OPCW spokesperson Michael Luhan.

"What we have seen today is that our Director-General confirmed that the Syrian authorities have submitted a new plan for removing the remaining chemicals, by which time they will have all of them out of the country before the end of April, so that's very welcome news."

The Syrian government has already missed two previous benchmark deadlines for its destruction plans.

Syria has a declared total of 13-hundred metric tons of chemical weapons.

The U.S. says it needs at least 90-days to destroy roughly 500-metric tons of the most poisonous materials.

The new destruction plans are part of the broader US and Russian brokered deal last year following a deadly chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus.

That US-Russian deal requires all of Syria's chemical weapons to be destroyed by the end of June.