It has been announced that chemical weapons will soon be destroyed

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Wednesday that the process of destroying tens of thousands of tonnes of declared chemical weapons around the world could be completed “within weeks”. During a presentation of a new technology center near its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, the OPCW pointed to new threats posed by artificial intelligence in the fight against chemical weapons.

“Over 70,000 tons of the world’s most dangerous poisons have been destroyed under the supervision of the OPCW,” its director, Fernando Arias, told reporters. A small remaining stockpile of chemical weapons in the United States It will be cleared “in a few weeks”, he added.

Since the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty banning the use of chemical weapons implemented in 1997, the OPCW has destroyed 72,118 tons, or 99%, of stockpiles declared by countries around the world. Approximately 127 tons of weapons remain at two facilities located in Colorado and Kentucky, the OPCW told AFP. After 26 years, this is a great achievement for the organization, he said.

Abandoned cargo

But he warns that the planet still holds thousands of chemical weapons, including, for example, remnants of Japan’s occupation of China before World War II. Pre-World War I chemical weapons are still a very real danger today. “Each day four chemical weapons remains are still being discovered,” said the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the OPCW.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime agreed to join the organization and give up all chemical weapons in 2013 following a sarin nerve gas attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that killed 1,400 people. But the Syrian regime has since been repeatedly accused of chemical weapons attacks. Speaking at the OPCW’s new premises in Nootdorp, Fernando Arias said the organization’s investigators had “learned a lot in Syria”.

At a cost of €34 million, the new centre, which is due to be officially opened next week, replaces an older, smaller and outdated facility in The Hague. It houses a laboratory, storage space for expensive equipment used by investigators, and a training facility to deal with threats posed by new chemical weapons.

“New Poisons”

“With artificial intelligence, new poisons are being produced and it’s much easier now than ever before,” Mr Arias warned. According to the OPCW, radical Islamist groups are developing chemical weapons production capabilities, particularly in Africa.

Separately, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has increased the threat of using weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, the OPCW chief said in November. Threats and accusations of the possible use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been exchanged since the start of the war in Ukraine, but without any evidence that they have been used.

Russia is a member of the OPCW and has said it does not have military chemical weapons, but the country is facing pressure for greater transparency over its alleged use of toxic weapons. In 2020, Kremlin dissident Alexei Navalny is now in jail A victim of severe poisoning in Siberia, for which he blamed the Russian authorities. In 2018, former KGB agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with Novichok. UK Moscow has always denied any involvement in the two incidents.

(AFP)Show comments