Watchdog says Syria handed over chemical arms details

THE HAGUE, NetherlandsThe world's chemical weapons watchdog says Syria has sent it details of its poison gas and nerve agent program and a plan to destroy all facilities linked to the deadly arsenal.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced Sunday that Syria completed its declaration Thursday, as part of a strict timeline that aims to destroy the stockpile by mid-2014.

The Hague-based group says such declarations by member states "provide the basis on which plans are devised for a systematic, total and verified destruction of declared chemical weapons and production facilities."

No details of the declaration or destruction plan were released Sunday.

Syria already had given preliminary details to the OPCW and inspectors have visited most of the 23 sites Damascus declared and begun overseeing destruction work.

Last week, Norway turned down a U.S. request to receive the bulk of Syria's chemical weapons for destruction because it doesn't have the capabilities to complete the task by the deadlines given.

Norwegian foreign minister Boerge Brende said Norway hadn't been able to identify a port that could receive the weapons and didn't have the capacity to treat some of the waste products resulting from the destruction of the munitions.

In a webcast news conference, Brende said both the U.S. and Norway agreed there was no point in continuing "the evaluation of Norway as a place for this destruction."

Brende said the U.S. is looking at other alternatives but didn't give details.