DAMASCUS, Oct 6: Experts began on Sunday the process of destroying Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal under the terms of a UN resolution that would see Damascus relinquish its banned weapons, an official said.

The source in the international mission said the experts would verify details of the arsenal turned over by the Syrian government and start the process of destroying the weapons and production facilities.

The team faces the massive task of destroying an estimated 1,000 tons of the nerve agent sarin, mustard gas and other banned arms at dozens of sites in Syria by mid-2014 in line with the UN resolution.

As the operation got under way, President Bashar al Assad admitted in an interview with Germany’s Spiegel news magazine that his government made “mistakes” in the country’s brutal civil conflict.

But he again denied that his forces used chemical weapons in an Aug 21 attack that eventually led to the UN resolution requiring Syria turn over its arsenal of the banned weapons.

The team of disarmament experts from UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague arrived in Damascus on Tuesday.

An official in the joint mission said on Sunday that members of the team “have left for a site where they are beginning verification and destruction”. “Today is the first day of destruction, in which heavy vehicles are going to run over and thus destroy missile warheads, aerial chemical bombs and mobile and static mixing and filling units,” he said.

An OPCW official said earlier this week that all “expedient methods” would be used to render Syria’s production facilities unusable, including explosives, sledgehammers, or pouring in concrete.

“Phase one…is ending and we are now moving towards phase two, verification and destruction and disabling,” the mission source said on Sunday.

In the interview published on Sunday by Spiegel, Mr Assad said his government was being “very transparent” with the UN-OPCW team.

“The experts can go to every site. They are going to get all the data from us, they will verify them, and then they can make a judgment about our credibility,” he said.

He repeated that his government was not responsible for the August chemical attack but acknowledged that mistakes had been made in responding to the uprising against him that began in March 2011.

“Whenever political decisions are made, mistakes happen. Everywhere in the world. We are all just people,” he said.

“Personal mistakes by individuals happened. We all make mistakes. Even a president makes mistakes,” he said, insisting however “our fundamental decisions were right.” —AFP