08 July 2004
U.S. Supports Libya, Albania Bids for Weapon Deadline Extensions
Change also sought in deadline for converting chemical facilities
The United States supports requests by Libya and Albania to extend deadlines for destroying chemical weapon stockpiles, says U.S. Ambassador Erik Javits.
Speaking June 29 before the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Javits said the council had previously granted similar extensions and that the deadlines involved were intermediate ones. Both countries must still meet the Chemical Weapons Convention's (CWC) final deadline of April 29, 2007.
Javits also offered U.S. support for Libya's request to convert its Rabta chemical weapons production facility to peaceful purposes, even though the CWC's deadline for completing such work expired more than a year ago.
Libya says it wants to use the facility to produce low-cost pharmaceuticals to treat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis throughout Africa and the developing world. Javits said the United States supports this conversion on both ethical and humanitarian grounds.
"If the [conversion] deadline is not modified, or left unaddressed," Javits said, "this could serve as a disincentive for some non-state parties to accede to the Convention."
He indicated the United States, Britain, Italy and other nations would submit a joint proposal by mid-July that would allow this change and that would apply not only to Libya but to all future acceding states.
Concerning efforts to make the CWC universally subscribed to, Javits noted "with satisfaction" the recent accession of Rwanda, the Marshall Islands, and St. Kitts and Nevis to the convention, and said he was encouraged by recent universality conferences in Ethiopia and Malta.
"We look forward to welcoming others as States Parties, including Iraq, now that sovereignty has been restored," Javits said.
Two other items on the U.S. agenda, according to Javits, are the financial and administrative reform of OPCW and the exploration of efficient ways to transparently verify destruction of chemical weapons.
Javits also called on OPCW's Secretariat to "vigorously pursue a solution to the problem of late submission of declarations" by treaty governments listing the activities they have completed within the Convention's timelines. Only 22 percent has submitted the annual declaration for 2003.
The United States praised the unanimous passage, earlier this year, of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540, as "an important affirmation of the work being done in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," he said.
The mandate of the OPCW is to ensure that the CWC works effectively and achieves its purpose of eliminating the production, stockpiling, transfer or use of toxic chemicals as weapons. UNSCR 1540 requires all members of the United Nations to "enact effective export and trans-shipment controls, criminalize the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and secure all related materials within their borders," according to Javits.
The OPCW Article VII Action Plan, he said, calls for parties to the convention to fully implement their obligations under the CWC by enacting domestic legislation and establishing a national authority. Javits termed the plan "an important element that addresses the proliferation threat," and remarked that it is consistent with the goals of UNSCR 1540.
"The fundamental objective," he said, "is to keep weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery out of the hands of terrorists and rogue regimes."
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=July&x=20040708170126frllehctim0.5614435&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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