Albania is the first nation to completely eliminate its full stockpile of chemical weapons, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced today (see GSN, April 27).
The Chemical Weapons Convention verification body said it confirmed yesterday that Albania had incinerated more than 16 metric tons of mustard, lewisite, mixed mustard/lewisite, adamsite and chloroacetophenone agents.
The exact provenance of the weapons remains unclear (see GSN, Jan. 13, 2005).
Albania and five other treaty nations have declared chemical stockpiles totaling more than 71,000 metric tons. India, Libya, Russia, South Korea and the United States are continuing efforts to eliminate their arsenals of banned materials such as VX nerve agent and mustard blister agent. More than one-third of the total amount had been eliminated by the end of June, according to a OPCW press release (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons release, July 12).