Brussels.- The European Union (EU) celebrated this Saturday that the United States has completed the destruction of all its chemical weapons stockpiles and stressed that it represents a “milestone” in the application of the Chemical Weapons Convention signed a quarter of a century ago.
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, stressed that Washington has achieved it before the deadline set for it, in September of this year, and in a “safe and sensible way with the environment” and praised the work of the team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that has verified the destruction of the arsenal on the ground.
“The completion of the destruction work marks an important milestone in the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention 25 years after its entry into force,” Borrell said in a statement, emphasizing that this agreement “is a key element of the international architecture non-proliferation and disarmament.
The EU also reiterated its willingness to continue supporting politically and financially the application of the Convention to prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons and fight against the impunity of those who use them, and recalled that in the last council of foreign ministers the bloc approved a new voluntary contribution of 5,300 million euros until 2026 for the OPCW.
The US government announced yesterday that it had completed the destruction of all its chemical weapons stockpiles after 30 years of work at the end of the liquidation of the last remaining deposit, which originally contained 523 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas in projectiles and rockets.
The United States produced chemical weapons from World War I (1914-1918) and until 1968 as a deterrent against similar weapons used by other countries, and reserves in the country reached about 40,000 tons by the end of the 1960s, according to the Centers. for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Although they had never been used on the battlefield, they had become obsolete and deteriorated over time. EFE
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2023-07-08 18:51:24
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