INDIA DESTROYS CHEMICAL WEAPONS STOCKPILE

INDIA DESTROYS CHEMICAL WEAPONS STOCKPILE
By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, May 15 (Bernama) -- India has revealed that it has destroyed its
chemical weapons stockpile, keeping its promise to the international community
to completely eliminate its weapons by March this year.

The IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) reported that India informed the
Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that it
had destroyed its stockpile on March 26, fulfilling its obligation to the arms
control agreement.

"The OPCW inspectors finalised all necessary on-site activities to allow
termination of systematic verification of destruction, and ceased their physical
presence at the facility as of the end of March 2009.

"In addition, our inspectors confirmed the completion of destruction of the
former chemical weapons production facility, which had been temporarily
converted for chemical weapons destruction purposes," Michael Luhan, OPCW's head
of Media and Public Affairs, told IANS.

India now becomes the third country, besides South Korea and Albania, to get
rid of chemical weapons.

In 1997, India declared that it had a stockpile of 1,044 tonnes of sulphur
mustard and that less than two per cent of the chemical was used in artillery
shells at that time and the balance was stored in bulk containers, reported
IANS.

India, which became a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993,
started to reduce its reserve in several phases from 1999 and by 2008 it
declared that 75 per cent of its stock had been destroyed, and promised to
destroy the balance by this year.
-- BERNAMA