REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, THE HAGUE -  Syria would miss a major deadline next week in the program to destroy its chemical weapons production facilities, sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Thursday.

Syria declared 12 production facilities to the OPCW and has until March 15 to destroy them under a deal agreed with the United States and Russia. Damascus has already missed several deadlines laid out in the agreement.

"That will definitely be missed," said an official involved in discussions with Syria, referring to the March 15 deadline.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said there were seven "hardened" aircraft hangars and five underground facilities. "None of them have been destroyed at the moment," the official said.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Damascus agreed last year to destroy all chemical weapons facilities and surrender 1,300 metric tons of toxic agents to a joint OPCW/United Nations mission. It has until June 30 to eliminate its chemical weapons program completely.

The deal averted US missile strikes threatened by Washington after an August 21 sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in the outskirts of the capital. Syria missed a February 5 deadline to ship all chemicals abroad for destruction and is weeks behind schedule. It has increased the handover of poisonous agents, including a shipment of mustard gas this week, but would not meet a March 30 deadline to neutralize all the chemicals overseas, sources at OPCW said.

That process was already supposed to have started on board the USMV Cape Ray, a cargo ship outfitted with special chemical neutralization equipment. But only a quarter of the so-called priority 1 chemicals, the most dangerous ingredients for chemical weapons, have been relinquished, officials said.

Syria is not taking the deadline for the destruction of production facilities seriously, another source at the OPCW said on Thursday.

"They are not doing things in the timeframe they promised they would," the source said. "The process is in volatile waters."

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