Experts from the United Nations arrived in Syria on Tuesday to begin the process of verifying and eliminating the regime’s chemical weapons stockpile.

The experts arrived in a convoy of about 20 U.N. vehicles, according to Reuters.

The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is overseeing the implementation of the U.N. resolution, which enshrines a deal hashed out by the United States and Russia.

The Syrian regime has so far complied with the deal hammered out by Washington and Moscow after an August 21 chemical weapons attack in Damascus, which the U.S. blamed on Syrian government forces.

The deal stipulates that the regime’s stockpile be dismantled by the middle of next year and the U.N. mission is expected to continue until then.

The OPCW has received documents from the Syrian regime detailing its arsenal, which is believed to include more than 1,000 tons of sarin, mustard gas and other banned chemicals stored at an estimated 45 sites.

 Photo: A convoy of U.N. vehicles is seen at the Lebanon-Syria Masna'a border crossing on October 1, 2013

Source: Reuters Photo: AFP