Baku, November 20 (AZERTAC). The world's chemical watchdog on Friday adopted a final roadmap for ridding Syria of its arsenal by mid-2014, hours before a deadline expired, a spokesman said.

"The plan is adopted," Christian Chartier, a spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), told AFP after a meeting of its 41-member Executive Council in The Hague.

Under the deal, Syria's weapons will be taken out of the war-ravaged country, where an estimated 120,000 people have been killed during uprising, to ensure their destruction in the "safest and soonest manner", the OPCW said in a statement.

"The plan provides a clear roadmap. It sets ambitious milestones to be met by the government of Syria," OPCW Director General Ahmet Uzumcu said in a statement. "Continuing international support and assistance for this endeavour will remain crucial," Uzumcu said.

Under the plan, almost all of Syria's chemicals and precursors, except for isopropanol which can be used to make sarin nerve gas, must be removed from the country by February 5, 2014.

'Most critical' chemicals out of Syria by New Year

The "most critical" chemicals must be removed by the end of the year, the OPCW said.

Declared chemical weapons facilities will be destroyed between December 15 and March 15, 2014, "according to a risk-based criterion", the watchdog said.

Likewise, "priority" chemicals will be destroyed outside of Syria by April 2014, and all other chemicals by June 30, 2014.

Sigrid Kaag, who is coordinating the joint UN-OPCW mission in Syria, told the meeting: "I am currently reaching out to others to consider joining this international effort".

Friday was the deadline for OPCW to agree "destruction milestones" for the more than 1,000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals in Syria, with eyes now turned on staunch US ally Tirana.

Meanwhile, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said his country has ruled out destroying Syria's chemical weapon stock on its soil. "It is impossible for Albania to take part in such an operation...as it has no capacity" to carry out such a task, Rama told reporters.

Albania destroyed all of its chemical weapons left over from the Communist era, but many Albanians have been protesting against Syria's chemicals going there.

The focus of Syria's chemical disarmament is increasingly on how the world can help, and it was not immediately clear which country could receive and destroy the lethal chemicals and precursors after Tirana's refusal.