China urges country concerned to start substantive destruction process for chemical weapons

China has urged the country concerned to fulfill its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and honor its commitments, and start at an early date the substantive destruction process for the chemical weapons it abandoned in China so as to destroy those weapons completely and thoroughly as soon as possible.

China suffered a lot from the use of biological and chemical weapons by foreign countries in history, says the China's Endeavors for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, a white paper issued by the Information Office of the State Council Thursday.

The chemical weapons abandoned by Japan on Chinese soil are still posing a grave and real threat to the lives and property of the Chinese people, and to the ecological environment, says the paper.

The paper says China supports the efforts by the international community to ban biological and chemical weapons and has actively participated in the negotiations of relevant treaties or protocols.

China has taken concrete actions to promote the process undertaken by the international community to achieve complete prohibition and thorough destruction of biological and chemical weapons.

In 1999, the governments of China and Japan signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the Destruction of the Chemical Weapons Abandoned by Japan in China.

Currently, relevant work of disposing the chemical weapons abandoned by Japan has moved from the phase of theoretical research and experiment to that of construction and implementation, says the paper.

It says the two sides have reached agreement on issues like the destruction technologies and location of destruction facility and specific environmental standards have, by and large, been worked out.

The preparatory work for the excavation and recovery of the chemical weapons abandoned by Japan and construction of the destruction facility is currently under way as planned, according to the paper.

Source: Xinhua