AMSTERDAM, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Libya should be allowed to convert a former
chemical weapons plant into a facility for producing vaccines and medicines,
an international arms control body said on Monday. Rogelio Pfirter, director
general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
said Libya has made "rapid progress" in destroying its chemical weapons
after it pledged to abandon weapons of mass destruction last December. The
North African country, which joined the organisation in February, was cooperating
in a "thorough and professional manner", Pfirter told a meeting of the OPCW's
executive council in The Hague where the body is based. Libya, whose leader
Muammar Gaddafi has taken steps over the last year to end his country's
international isolation, is committed to destroying all its chemical weapons
and the capacity to produce them by April 29, 2007. The OPCW, which enforces
a global chemical weapons ban with 160 signatories, said in a statement
its executive council had recommended a change in the group's rules to allow
Libya to convert a former chemical weapons plant for peaceful purposes.
The rules have to be changed as they currently state any such conversion
had to take place by April last year, six years after the entry into force
of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The change should provide an incentive
to states that have not yet or only recently joined the convention, the
OPCW said. "It is foreseen that the facility would be utilised to produce
low-cost vaccines and medicines for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and
tuberculosis for the African continent," it said, adding the conversion
would be strictly monitored. OPCW signatories have 90 days to raise objections,
but usually follow the council's recommendations. Inspectors from the arms
control body earlier this year verified Libya's declared stockpile of chemical
weapons, including 23 tonnes of deadly mustard gas.
