OPCW chief urges Israel to join chemical arms treaty

Source: Jerusalem Post

Israel, Egypt and North Korea should renounce chemical weapons, especially after Syria joined the convention banning them and three other nations plan to do so, the chief of an international watchdog said on Tuesday.

Ahmet Uzumcu, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said Angola, Myanmar and South Sudan were preparing to join the pact.

"Now since Syria has become a member country, I think [Israel] can reconsider," Uzumcu told Reuters in Oslo, where he accepted the 2013 Nobel award for the OPCW.

Israel, which has observer status at the OPCW, signed the convention in 1993, but has never ratified it.



Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/OPCW-chief-urges-Israel-to-join-chemical-arms-treaty-334562