WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has announced that the United States (US) has completely destroyed its chemical weapons, accomplishing a pledge under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The US President said, “The US has safely destroyed the last munition in that stockpile — bringing us one step nearer to a world free from chemical weapons,”.
US Has Completely Destroyed Its Chemical Weapons: President Biden
The US was the last of the Chemical Weapons Convention’s signatories to fulfill the task of safely destroying its “declared” weapon, though some are believed to maintain secret reserves of the weapons.
In a statement President Biden said “It marks the first time that a global organization has verified destruction of the chemical weapons,”.
Russia had completed destroying its own declared weapons in 2017.
The Chemical Weapons Convention gave the US until September 30 2023 to destroy all of its chemical munitions.
Other signatories to the convention had already destroyed their holdings, Chief of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said in May.
Biden asked continued vigilance to ensure all chemical weapons across the world are demolished and said that a few of countries that have not joined the Chemical Weapons Convention should do so.
