The announcement came after a meeting at UN Headquarters on Wednesday between Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Åke Sellström, the head of the UN fact-finding mission set up in March to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict.

A read-out of the meeting stated that Mr. Sellström and Angela Kane, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, have agreed to accept the Syrian Government’s invitation to visit Damascus with a view to completing the consultations on the modalities of cooperation required for the proper, safe and efficient conduct of the investigation.

The focus of the mission, set up following a formal request from the Syrian Government, will be an incident involving the alleged use of chemical weapons in Kfar Dael region in Khan Al-Asal area in Aleppo governorate.

The Secretary-General had repeatedly called on Damascus to grant the team access to the country so that it can carry out an on-the-ground investigation into the allegations.

Mr. Sellström provided Mr. Ban with an oral update on the mission’s off-site activities, which included the analysis of information received from Member States and fact-finding activities in a neighbouring country.

Since fighting began in March 2011 between the Syrian Government and opposition groups seeking to oust President Bashar Al-Assad as many as 100,000 people have been killed, almost 2 million have fled to neighbouring countries and a further 4 million have been internally displaced.

“The mission will happen in a week’s time or so,” Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom said in an interview with UN Radio yesterday. “It’s a matter of days.”

Mr. Sellstrom was appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to head the UN fact-finding mission, which was launched following a formal request from the Syrian Government.

The initial focus of the investigation will be an incident involving the alleged use of chemical weapons in Kfar Dael region in Khan Al-Asal area in Aleppo governorate.

“The investigation mission is to look into the specific incident brought to my attention by the Syrian Government,” Mr. Ban said last week when he announced the investigation. “I am, of course, aware that there are other allegations of similar cases involving the reported use of chemical weapons,” he added.

Mr. Sellstrom, currently a project manager at a Swedish research institute, said that the members of the mission will consist of international organizations and that they have all been nearly chosen.

“There’s a lot of preparatory work,” he noted. “Then we also have to rely on the security situation to allow us to do the mission.”

Following the preparatory work, the mission will have three or four days of inspections, and then two to three weeks of report writing and chemical analysis, he added.

UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky, speaking at a news conference in New York today, reiterated that the investigation is of a very specific nature.

“It is not the role of this mission to apportion responsibility or blame,” he stated. “It’s not a criminal investigation. It’s looking at whether chemical weapons were used, and not by whom.