Lithuania to exchange chemical weapons information

VILNIUS-  From April 7-18, Lithuania put forward a proposal to voluntarily exchange information on chemical weapons dumped at sea in The Hague at the Second Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Although the Chemical Weapons Convention is not applied to those chemical weapons which had been dumped at sea until 1985, Lithuania holds dumped chemical weapons an integral part of the disarmament problem and putting forward this proposal, Lithuania seeks to encourage countries to voluntarily exchange information regarding the issue. Lithuania invites Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Rogelio Pfirter to look for possibilities for the cooperation among countries, making use of the experience of this organisation.

According to the Ministry press release, detailed historical data that has been collected, as well as recommendations of certain countries concerning the behaviour with the dumped chemical weapons will allow to resolve the problem that causes enormous damage to the environment more effectively in the future and to inform the society and industry representatives on the damage caused by the chemical weapons.

It is well known today that there are chemical weapons dumped at the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Chemical Weapons Convention began in 1997. The Convention outlaws the development, use, production and selling of chemical weapons and hold countries responsible for destroying the supplies of chemical weapons immediately.

During the Second Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, countries  discussed the implementation of the Convention and to encourage the cooperation among countries taking national measures.

So far there are 183 States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Lithuania became one of the States Parties to this Convention in 1998.