Global Security Newswire

Nations including Russia and China maintain chemical weapons programs and are failing to fully report stockpiles that are to be destroyed under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the U.S. General Accounting Office said in a report to be released this week (see GSN, April 8).

Many of the 161 treaty parties, including the United States, would not meet the 2012 deadline for destruction of their chemical arsenals, the Washington Times reported today after obtaining a copy of the GAO report.

The congressional investigative office said Russia has not fully disclosed its chemical weapons holdings, and is believed to be developing “a new generation of agents that could circumvent the CWC and possibly defeat western detection and protection systems,” the report states, according to the Times.

“The lack of a credible Russian chemical weapons destruction plan has hindered and may further delay destruction efforts, leaving Russia’s vast chemical weapons arsenal vulnerable to theft or diversion,” possibly by terrorists, the report adds.

China “maintains an active chemical weapons research and development program, a possible undeclared chemical weapons stockpile, and weapons-related facilities that were not declared,” the report states.

Iran also seeks to modernize its chemical weapons production efforts, and Sudan is working to develop such weaponry, the report states.

China, Russia, Iran and Sudan are all parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Less than 40 percent of CWC member states have made chemical weapons activity illegal within their borders, the GAO said (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, April 27).