President Joe Biden announced that the United States has fully destroyed its decades-old stockpiles of chemical weapons, a milestone hailed as completing the elimination around the world of all known stores of the agents of mass death.
“Today, I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the final munition in that stockpile – bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons,” Biden said.
The United States was the last of the signatories of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into effect in 1997, to complete the task of destroying their “declared” stockpiles, though some states are believed to maintain secret reserves of chemical weapons.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons called the milestone a “historic success” of disarmament, more than one century after the uncontrolled use of chemical gases during World War I produced mass deaths and maiming of troops.
The US announcement meant that all the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles were “verified as irreversibly destroyed,” the OPCW said.
“I congratulate all States Parties, and the United States of America in this instance, on this major achievement for the international community,” said OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias.
Biden said it was the first time “an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction” has been verified as destroyed.—Agencies
