Britain Destroys Chemical Weapons

BRITAIN has finally destroyed the last of its old holdings of chemical weapons, the Government said yesterday.

Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said the Government had now met its obligation under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy all its old holdings by April this year.

“Today marks another landmark for our efforts to rid the world of these terrible weapons,” he said.

“We have met our obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroyed our old chemical weapons ahead of schedule.

“Our goal is a world without chemical weapons and so we call upon all states to abandon their chemical weapons programmes and destroy their stockpiles, including legacy weapons.”

While Britain has not had an active chemical weapons capability since the 1950s, 3,812 old weapons have been destroyed by military bomb disposal teams and the technical experts at the Defence laboratories at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

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