Experts from the world's chemical weapons watchdog will begin inspecting Syria's stockpile of toxic munitions by Tuesday, according to a draft agreement obtained by Reuters.
The draft, which is due to be voted on Friday night, calls on members of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to make cash donations to fund Syria's fast-tracked destruction operation.
The 41-member executive council of the OPCW is due to discuss and vote on the proposal at 22:00 (20:00GMT) Friday night. It needs a simple majority to be passed, but decisions at the body are normally agreed upon by consensus.
It requests urgent funding to hire inspectors and technical experts to destroy what Western intelligence agencies believe is about 1,000 tonnes of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents, built up over decades and spread over dozens of locations.
An OPCW official said an advance team would head for Syria on Monday.
Established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, the OPCW has an annual budget of under $100 million and less than 500 staff. It does not have the manpower to carry out the task without significantly increasing.
Experts have said it will be risky and expensive to destroy the chemicals in Syria, where a civil war has killed more than 100,000 and displaced millions more.
Syria has just nine months to do what some countries, including Russia and the United States, have taken more than a decade to do.
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