Chemical Weapons Destruction Advances

Slightly more than 60% of the declared global stockpiles of chemical warfare agents have been destroyed by nations participating in the Chemical Weapons Convention, the international treaty that entered into force in 1997. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has verified that seven countries have eliminated 41,692 metric tons of substances banned under the pact, such as mustard blister agent and the nerve agents VX and sarin. That represents about 60% of the materials once held by Albania, India, Iraq, Libya, Russia, South Korea, and the U.S. The two countries with the largest stockpiles, Russia and the U.S., have acknowledged that they will not meet the convention’s April 2012 deadline for eliminating their chemical weapons. Russia says its program to eliminate 40,000 metric tons of weapons material will be finished in 2015, whereas the U.S. expects to destroy its declared stockpile of 28,600 metric tons of weapons agents in 2021.