Protect chemical weapons ban, watchdog's chief pleads

The outgoing head of the world's chemical arms watchdog has urged nations not to sacrifice a century of hard-fought efforts to banish toxic weapons for the sake of short-term political disputes.

Speaking exclusively to AFP just days before he steps down and with a team of inspectors on the ground in Britain to probe a suspected nerve agent attack, Ahmet Uzumcu called on members of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to overcome bitter divisions.

The Chemical Weapons Convention banning the use, production and stockpiling of arms such as mustard gas, which crept across the battlefields of World War I or enveloped the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, came into force in 1997.

Today "in order to reach this stage to develop such a regime, the international community spent more than 100 years," stressed Uzumcu. "It will be really unfortunate if we make it a victim to short-sighted political interests."
"Accountability is key," said Uzumcu, otherwise "we cannot ensure deterrence. We cannot prevent further uses. A culture of impunity would be extremely dangerous for the future."