Latakia,Syria/New York, 7 January 2014

The Joint Mission confirms that further progress has been made towards the removal and elimination of the Syrian Arab Republic’s chemical weapons programme. A first quantity of priority chemical materials was moved from two sites to the port of Lattakia for verification and was then loaded onto a Danish commercial vessel today. The vessel has been accompanied by naval escorts provided by Denmark and Norway, as well as the Syrian Arab Republic. This movement initiates the process of transfer of chemical materials from the Syrian Arab Republic to locations outside its territory for destruction.