The permanent representative of Syria at the UN, Bashar Dzhaafari, declared that in the country there was only one warehouse with chemical weapons, which are due for destruction, and that is under the control of fighters. Thus, the Syrian government could remove from the country and destroy all available toxic substances before the established period. According to the director of information projects PIR, Andrew Baklitskiy, it would be possible to try to achieve further success and reach agreements on the chemical weapons in Syria.
"The story with the Syrian chemical weapons was a very successful decision for Russian diplomacy and quite a successful decision for world diplomacy, as it was once again shown that the international mechanisms, mechanisms of contracts still operate, they are more successful and more preferable than conducting military operations. Immediately after that there was an attempt to continue this successful sequence - there was an agreement according to the Iranian nuclear program, quite successful too, which, we hope, will lead to the conclusion of the comprehensive agreement, as well as an attempt to extend all this further, to the whole of the Middle East, including Israel," Baklitsky said.
However, according to him, "the question of military permission for the Syrian conflict from third countries hasn't been removed from the agenda, also there could be such situation in which Syria rejected chemical weapons and received intervention for it. Though chemical weapons would hardly help Syria beat off the Americans, because the technologies aren't equal- if you are attacked by drones and cruise missiles, sarin is unlikely to help in this case. Therefore the decision of the president [Bashar Assad] is absolutely correct - in the military plan, chemical weapons haven't got special value in the 21st century. It would be possible to conduct, on the basis of his example, negotiations with other countries, so that if Syria, which is in such difficult situation in civil war, agreed to large supplies and successfully executed a similar decision, there is nothing impossible for other countries." In short, the successful experience of Syria, which has managed, despite civil war, voluntarily to get rid of its stocks of chemical weapons, creates a basis for the creation of a zone free from weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Konstantin Sivkov, doesn't agree with this opinion: "Speaking about elimination of weapons of mass destruction, first of all nuclear, it is necessary to point out that it remains the guarantor of relative stability in the world. If Russia had no arsenals of nuclear weapons, military solutions to problems concerning the Russian Federation would begin for a long time in conditions of a more than fifteenfold superiority of armed forces of the NATO bloc over the armed forces of the Russian Federation. In the Middle East there is one serious player - Israel. According to estimates of military experts, the number of the nuclear arsenal of Israel is estimated at from 200 to 400 nuclear warheads. For comparison, the nuclear arsenal of France is 400 warheads, Great Britain – about 500. China has about 500 nuclear warheads. That is, Israel has already been included in the club of nuclear countries of average level, and it won't give up this arsenal, as Israel is surrounded by a hostile Arab world. Israel has to be ready at any time to solve the problem of nuclear control in case of conflict with a significant number of the countries of the Arab world."
According to Sivkov, "the total potential mobilization reserves of the Arab countries is more than twice that of Israel. Therefore Israel will never give up its arsenals of nuclear weapons. Israel can go for a reduction of any delivery systems of this weapon, it can partly go for a reduction in the quantity of nuclear weapons, but will never give up nuclear weapons. To talk about the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and the transformation of the Middle East into a nuclear-free zone ,free of weapons of mass destruction, in the current circumstances is an unattainable target, though very noble."
Andrey Baklitsky about a zone free of WMD in the Middle East.
