THE HAGUE, Nov 16: The world’s chemical watchdog on Friday adopted a final roadmap for ridding Syria of its arsenal by mid-2014, reaching agreement hours before a deadline expired.

“The plan is adopted,” Christian Chartier, a spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said after a meeting of its 41-member Executive Council in The Hague.

Friday was the deadline for the OPCW to agree “destruction milestones” for the more than 1,000 tons of dangerous chemicals in Syria, according to the terms of a US-Russian deal that headed off US military strikes on President Bashar al Assad’s regime.

The deal came amid growing momentum towards peace talks after more than two-and-a-half years of Syria’s deadly uprising, with the rebels suffering a string of recent setbacks.

Five rebel commanders have been killed since Thursday, including two chiefs of rebel battalions who died fighting loyalist forces near the international airport outside second city Aleppo.

The army has been pressing a campaign to retake rebel-held areas in Aleppo and jihadist fighters have called for mass mobilisation to counter regime advances.

A Syrian media report said that a long-delayed peace conference could be held in Geneva on Dec 12.

The international community has been trying for months to convene a peace conference dubbed “Geneva II”. But proposed dates have come and gone with no progress.

The regime has said it is willing to attend, provided Assad’s departure is not on the table. The opposition, though, insists on Assad’s departure and exclusion from the transition process.

The talks at OPCW headquarters in The Hague broke off twice before agreement was reached around 2000 GMT, as delegates thrashed out the final draft.

Under the deal, Syria’s weapons will be taken out of the war-ravaged country, where an estimated 120,000 people have been killed during the uprising, to ensure their destruction in the “safest and soonest manner”, the OPCW said in a statement.

Almost all of Syria’s chemicals and precursors, except for isopropanol which can be used to make sarin nerve gas, must be removed from the country by Feb 5, 2014.—AFP