Action urged to destroy chemical weapons: FM

Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention should work with the international community and take concrete actions to fulfill their obligations to safeguard the authority of the convention, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Friday.

Zhao told a news conference that full and balanced implementation of the convention is facing multiple challenges, and noted that the convention has played an instrumental role in maintaining international peace and security.

The United States has yet to complete the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile, making it the only country preserving such a stockpile, Zhao said, adding that "some countries have used hot spot issues, including chemical weapons in Syria to conduct political manipulation, disrupting the normal operation of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons".

Japan's implementation of the convention also does not satisfy the international community, Zhao said.

Japan has failed several times to meet the deadlines for destroying the chemical weapons it had abandoned in China at the end of World War II, threatening the lives and properties of the Chinese people and China's environment, he said.

"The chemical weapons left behind in China are one of the serious crimes that the Japanese militarism committed during Japan's aggressive war on China," Zhao said.

Japan has safely recovered more than 90,000 pieces of chemical weapons from China and destroyed more than 60,000, but is "far from completing its task" to destroy its chemical weapons in China, Zhao said.

Urging Japan to do all it can to speed up the destruction process, Zhao said it's a commitment Japan has made to China and the world as well as its responsibility to destroy all its chemical weapons in China as soon as possible in a clean and thorough manner.

China, an original party to the convention and the second-largest contributor to the OPCW, has made important contributions to global disarmament and security governance, Zhao said.

wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn

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