Italy on Thursday named the port of Gioia Tauro in the Calabria region to receive Syrian chemical agents, including mustard gas, despite fierce opposition from local officials who slammed the move as undemocratic.
"The government has chosen the port of Gioia Tauro as particularly appropriate," Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi told lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing on the operation to take place by the beginning of February.
The operation to transfer some 500 tons of Syria's deadliest chemicals from a Danish ship to a U.S. vessel is part of a U.N.-backed plan to destroy the war-torn country's chemical weapons arsenal by June 30.
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