Exclusive - Patience runs thin as Syrian chemical handover stalls

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Western governments are growing impatient with Syria's failure to follow up promptly on a first small shipment of chemical weapons and fear Damascus will miss a deadline to hand over all toxins by mid-2014.

Sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is jointly overseeing the destruction process with the United Nations, said the concerns have been raised during internal discussions, but have not yet been reported to the U.N. Security Council.