South Korea has dispatched a military expert to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to participate in international efforts to remove Syria’s chemical arsenal, a government source said Monday.

“The Defense Ministry has recently sent an expert to the OPCW’s department related to activities to remove Syria’s chemical weapons,” the source said.

The OPCW is carrying out a mission to remove Syria’s chemical weapons jointly with the United States under the U.N. Security Council Resolution No. 2118, adopted in September.

In late October, the Syrian government completed destruction of its facilities for producing and mixing chemical weapons under monitoring by an OPCW inspection team. It is now taking steps to eliminate existing chemical weapons possibly by the end of the first half of next year. (Yonhap News)