REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ROME - The removal and destruction of the most dangerous agents in Syria's chemical arsenal would likely be delayed until the end of June because of logistical and security problems, the head of the world's chemical weapons watchdog said on Thursday.

Mustard gas and the components for making Sarin and VX - known as "primary" agents - were originally to have been destroyed by the end of March.

Syria has already missed a December 31 goal to transport the most toxic substances to a port and so far has loaded only a relatively small amount of chemicals onto the Danish cargo ship Ark Futura.

Ahmet Uzumcu, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said he was "confident" that all the chemicals could be destroyed by the end of June - the original deadline for the less dangerous "commodity" chemicals.

"As we were not able to meet the timeline for the 31st of December, from my point of view what is important is really the end of June 2014, so we will do our best to meet it," he said.

The OPCW is overseeing the destruction of the Syrian arsenal as part of an international accord brokered by Russia after poison gas attacks on the outskirts of Damascus killed hundreds, including children, last August.

Chemical weapons were likely used in five out of seven attacks investigated by U.N. experts in Syria, where a near three-year year civil war has killed more than 100,000 people. Uzumcu said only about 16 tonnes of the total of 560 tonnes of the "primary" chemicals had so far been shifted to the Danish vessel.

Once the Danish ship has loaded all the primary agents, it will take them to the port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy, where they will be transferred to a US ship and later destroyed at sea.

Transporting the chemicals through a civil war is "quite challenging", Uzumcu said, renewing an appeal to groups that oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad's rule to cooperate.

"The biggest area of concern is clearly the safe transportation of those weapons, chemical substances, from the sites in Syria to the port of Latakia," he said.

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