World shifts chemical disarmament focus onto rogue attackers

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

THE HAGUE (AFP) — The nightmare scenario of a mass-scale chemical attack by extremists and the panic which would ensue has created a new role for the body set up to rid the world of chemical weapons.

Diplomats at the 10-day Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) review conference in The Hague this weekend adopted a new target deadline of 2012 for 183 member states to destroy their stockpiles.

But while 12 countries have yet to sign up to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention treaty or the mission's amended goals, including North Korea and Middle East heavyweights Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Syria they also gave the OPCW an expanded mandate.

The new mission statement highlights the "increased danger of the use of chemical weapons by...