Chemical Threat Destroyed

Britain has finally destroyed the last of its old holdings of chemical weapons, the Government has announced.

Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said an obligation under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention had now been met.

"Today marks another landmark for our efforts to rid the world of these terrible weapons," he said.

"We have met our obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroyed our old chemical weapons holdings ahead of schedule.

"Our goal is a world without chemical weapons and so we call upon all states to abandon their chemical weapons programmes and destroy their stockpiles, including legacy weapons."

While Britain has not had an active chemical weapons capability since the 1950s, some 3,812 old weapons have been destroyed at the defence laboratories at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

"The shells have been beyond military use for many years but destroying these heavily corroded and unstable weapons is a dangerous and challenging task," Mr Ingram said.

To mark the occasion, he is presenting a chemical weapon shell from the Second World War to the Imperial War Museum in London, to included in its permanent collection.

To date, 182 states have signed up to the 1997 convention, most recently Libya, while Iraq - which is one of only 13 states yet to join - has said that it will sign up in the near future.