Agency shifts focus on chemical threat

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — With about 92 percent of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles destroyed, the watchdog agency overseeing the elimination of poison gas and nerve agents is looking now to counter emerging threats from extremist groups while still dealing with unfinished business in Syria.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is marking the April 29, 1997, commencement of the Chemical Weapons Convention with a three- day conference starting today that focuses on chemical safety and security.

Extremists and criminals seem more likely than nations to launch chemical attacks, the organization said.

“We want to capture the current security threats in regard to chemical weapons, especially from nonstate actors,” Director- General Ahmet Uzumcu said at the organization’s headquarters in The Hague.

There have been repeated reports of chemical attacks in Syria’s civil war, and a United Nations- mandated investigation aimed at apportioning blame for nine cases in 2014 and 2015 is underway. A final report is expected shortly before the team’s mandate ends in September.

In some of the cases, it’s believed that chlorine was used in the attacks. The widely available substance is sold for legitimate purposes such as water purification, but chlorine gas also was used in the first large- scale chemical weapons attack by German forces in World War I.

“The challenge will remain to prevent the use of toxic substances as a weapon,” said Uzumcu, whose organization won the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize for its disarmament efforts.

The issue is not new, as the organization has been considering it since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, but it has been brought into sharper focus by the attacks in Syria.

At the conference, experts will discuss how to use the existing chemical weapons convention to tackle the problem and whether the organization needs to adapt.

Ralf Trapp, a former organization staff member who is now an independent disarmament and nonproliferation consultant, said protecting people from attacks that use readily available chemicals is a balancing act.

“You always will have the dilemma that some of these chemicals are in very wide use,” he said in a telephone interview. “If you over- regulate them or control them to the point where they can no longer

be properly used, you’re actually slowing down economic use. It’s not going to work.”

Trapp warned that finding a way to deal with extremists has taken on new urgency with the rise of the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq.

“Over time, you could expect that if they do decide to go for a chemical weapons program that they will in fact have the capability of investing time and money into it and develop something that would be much more sophisticated than what we see today,” he said.

Meanwhile, the watchdog agency has yet to complete its work in Syria, which joined the organization in 2013 during an international outcry over a nerve gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government declared a 1,300- ton chemical weapons stockpile and 14 production facilities, triggering an international operation to remove weapons and chemicals from the war- torn country and destroy them.

The weapons have been destroyed, as have 11 of the production plants, Uzumcu said, but member states of the organization have repeatedly questioned whether Assad declared everything in 2013.

“We are not yet there,” Uzumcu said. “There are still questions. I am not able to say whether Syria has declared everything or whether Syria continues to possess some chemical weapons or some munitions. I hope that we will be able to clarify the remaining questions.”

He said Syrian officials are expected to visit The Hague in the coming weeks to continue talks aimed at clarifying the situation.

Another key challenge for the organization is attempting to recruit four remaining countries that have not joined the chemical weapons convention — Egypt, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan.

Uzumcu said it is only a “matter of time” before South Sudan joins and said the change in the Mideast security landscape resulting from the Syrian war may ultimately lead to Israel and Egypt joining.

The reclusive regime in North Korea has so far ignored all attempts by Uzumcu to open a dialogue.

Trapp said getting Pyongyang on board will be tough because of the nuclear issue that dominates the disarmament agenda.