MOSCOW. Feb 3 (Interfax) - The U.S. M/V Cape Ray on which Syrian chemical weapons are expected to be destroyed will arrive in Italy in a few days but will forced to remain idle for some time.
"It is due to call at an Italian port in some ten days [tentatively on February 11] but it will be unable to get down to work immediately and will remain idle for some time," director of the Russian Foreign Ministry department for security and disarmament Mikhail Ulyanov has said in an interview with Interfax.
"As far as I understand the growing irritation of our Western colleagues stems from the fact that as a result of the delays with the withdrawal of chemicals from Syria other planned stages of the operations are being put off and this is causing inconvenience," the diplomat said.
"For instance, Scandinavian container ships were chartered for a relatively short time which has to be extended now. The U.S. M/V Cape Ray carrying hydrolysis equipment and which will be the site for scrapping Syrian chemical weapons will find itself in a similar position," he said.
In his opinion, all these problems "are relatively small compared to those that Damascus has to resolve."
Even if the timetable of the withdrawal of chemical weapons from Syria were observed, certain problems would still remain, Ulyanov said.
"Let's imagine just for one minute that Syrians by some miracle would have complied with the timetable and withdrawn all the most dangerous chemicals just before New Year. In that case Scandinavian container ships would have had to hang around for a month and a half somewhere in the Mediterranean with chemical armaments aboard waiting for the arrival of the U.S. ship which as I said is due to arrive at the Italian coast only in mid-February," Ulyanov said.
"For some reason such a situation which was easily foreseeable did not arouse any questions or gripe in anyone. But in the event of delays permitted by Damascus for serious objective reasons the reaction is absolutely different," he concluded.