According to Senator McConnell, the USA has destroyed its last designated chemical weapons – 26 years after the corresponding convention came into force. The Republican called the guns an “eyesore in history.”
According to a US senator, the United States has destroyed the last stockpiles of its chemical weapons. The Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, stated that the last of the officially known highly toxic warfare agents in the United States had been eliminated. This is a milestone, a good 26 years after the entry into force of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the world’s most horrifying human casualties, said McConnell, who has spearheaded the eradication of these weapons during his tenure. “Though the use of these deadly agents will always remain a blot on history, today our nation has finally fulfilled its pledge to rid our arsenal of this evil.”
McConnell is a Senator in the US state of Kentucky, where the Weapons Destruction Facility is based.
Deployment in several crisis areas
In 1997, the 193 states party to the Convention banning chemical weapons committed themselves to reporting and destroying all chemical weapons stocks and not to using chemical weapons. The Chemical Weapons Prohibition Control Authority (OPCW), based in The Hague, controls their enforcement. States that have not signed the convention include North Korea, Israel, Egypt and South Sudan.
In the past ten years, Syrian government troops have repeatedly used banned warfare agents in the civil war. If chemical weapons are suspected to have been used in conflicts, the OPCW sends investigators to the country concerned. The authority also regularly inspects the chemical industry in contracting states. The OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its work.
According to the dpa news agency, more than 70,000 tons of the deadliest weapons – such as mustard gas or sarin – have been destroyed since 1997. In the United States, around 127 tons were waiting to be destroyed.