Syria is expected to hand over a detailed plan for the destruction of its chemical arsenal in the next 24 hours, days ahead of deadline, the world's watchdog says.
The detailed plan is the next step for Damascus under the terms of a US-Russian deal to head off military strikes on Syria agreed last month which calls for all its chemicals to be destroyed by mid-2014.
"We expect Syria's initial declaration of its chemical weapons programme within the next 24 hours," spokesman Michael Luhan told reporters in The Hague on Wednesday.
President Bashar al-Assad's regime has already handed over an inventory of its chemicals, weapons and facilities, and international inspectors are already busy inspecting and destroying them.
Syria has until October 27 (Sunday) to submit its "initial" plan of how to destroy its weapons, in accordance with Article III of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
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A joint OPCW-UN mission has now checked 18 of 23 declared sites in Syria, destroying production equipment at almost all of them, Luhan said.
The OPCW's Executive Council will use the Syrian declaration to decide by November 15 on "destruction milestones" for Syria's arsenal.
With the first stage of the OPCW's work in Syria nearing completion, Luhan said that some inspectors would be leaving Damascus next week, temporarily reducing the watchdog's staff there from 28 to 15.
The combined OPCW-UN team in Syria is currently around 60-strong.
"We're reaching the end of this first stage, during which we needed to verify the chemical warfare programme by visiting all the disclosed sites," Luhan said.
A combined OPCW-UN logistics team has also been deployed to nearby Cyprus, he added.
Mission co-ordinator Sigrid Kaag said in Damascus on Tuesday that Syria was co-operating with the task of destroying its chemical stockpile.
