Mass destruction weapon expert, Charles Duelfer, doesn’t see any danger
in the process of disposing the Syrian chemical weapons in Albania,
although it is this country that will decide.
During an interview for the “Voice of America”, the former special adviser of the CIA director for the Iraq weapons declared:
“Albania has a history for disposing chemical weapons and it is close to Syra geographically. There are many factors in favor of choosing Albania, from the international community point of view. This seemed to be a good idea for Albania, politically and economically, because the destruction wasn’t going to be done by Albania only. It would even be followed by a source of income”, Duelfer declared.
When asked about the protests against, Duelfer says that the process has been misunderstood. “Albania will not import the chemical weapons, but their components”.
“What has been proposed, is that some components of these chemical weapons should be transported to Albania, dismantled and then removed from their territory. In Albania there are still chemical wastes of chemical weapons that have been destroyed before. In this case, the country could sign an agreement for removing the former wastes, after dismantling the components of the Syrian chemical weapons. This would make Albania even cleaner than before”, Duelfer declared.
The US expert says that Albania has three alternatives:
“Albania has three alternatives, by what I understood. It can say ‘Thank you, but we don’t want to participate. Send them somewhere else.’ In fact, there are other countries where they can be sent. The other alternative is for Albania to participate in only one phase of the process, dismantling the component, which will then be sent somewhere else to be burned. The third one, depending on the government, is for Albania to build an incinerator that could be used for other industrial purposes. But these are political and business matters too. Many countries have incinerators, and these countries have more advanced industrial processes, which need to dispose chemical wastes for not damaging the environment”, Duefler explained.
Duelfer says that USA and Russia have the capabilities to destroy the weapons, but they are far from the arsenal and the Organization for Stopping Chemical Weapons cannot rely only on these three countries for resolving the problem.
“To those who are concerned about these weapons, I can say that Albania will become even cleaner than before”.
When asked about the chances of accidents during the process, he says that there is no guarantee in life, but the chances for this to happen are relatively low.
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