A UN team examining samples from site of August 21 attack in Damascus. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Abdullah

(VOVworld) - Syria has shipped out approximately 80% of its declared chemical weapons material. Sigrid Kaag, the head of the international team overseeing the disarmament process made the statement on Saturday.
Kaag, special coordinator of the joint mission of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the renewed pace in movements is positive and necessary to ensure progress towards a tight deadline. She added that if the momentum was sustained, Syria would be able to meet the next Sunday deadline to hand over all declared chemical agents.
Earlier, Syrian President Bashar Assad agreed with the US and Russia to dispose of the chemical weapons - an arsenal which Damascus had never formally acknowledged – after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack on the outskirts of the capital last August.