28 countries reject chemical weapons

Twenty-eight countries strongly condemned the use of chemical weapons and commended the contribution made by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to freeing the world from that type of weapons of mass destruction at the fourth review conference of the chemical weapons convention held at the Hague, Nov. 30, 2018.

In a joint statement released by the Russian Embassy, the attendees lamented “the disunity among the States Parties to [the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction] CWC due to the politicization of the problem of the use of chemical weapons significantly reduces the efficiency of our Organization’s work, as it prevents us from focusing on common and genuinely pressing tasks that are set out in the Convention and have been successfully performed for many years. The joint statement “called for dialogue and consultations among States Parties to bridge their division and address their disagreements, so as to arrive at consensus on matters of substance as far as possible.”