04/09/2007
Japan and China will introduce a mobile facility to deactivate thousands of chemical weapons the Imperial Japanese Army abandoned in China at the end of World War II, sources said.
The project will be finalized when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meets with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later this week.
The Japanese military left behind an estimated 400,000 chemical weapons in China. So far, about 38,000 of them have been found at 30 locations in 13 provinces.
Beijing has been pressing Tokyo to clean up the hazards that have killed at least one Chinese.
The mobile unit is expected to speed up the disposal of the remaining weapons. It will be equipped with devices needed to disable the chemical weapons and will travel to sites around China where unearthed chemical weapons are stored.
Volatile parts, such as explosive mechanisms, will be removed, and the weapons will then be transported to a large facility planned in Haerbaling, Jilin province, for final disposal.
Under the 1997 United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention, Tokyo will provide all the funds, personnel and equipment needed to dispose of the abandoned weapons in China by April 2012.
After a formal agreement is reached during Wen's three-day visit to Japan beginning on Wednesday, the Japanese government will start building the 94-billion-yen ($787.8-million) disposal facility in Haerbaling, where more than 300,000 weapons are believed to have been buried.
Under the initial plan, all unearthed chemical weapons were to have been brought to the Haerbaling disposal facility for detoxification and incineration.
But treatment methods had not been decided for weapons found outside of Haerbaling.
Officials raised concerns that the decaying weapons could leak toxins or explode during transportation over long distances.
In August 2003, one person was killed and more than 40 injured by touching soil tainted by poison that leaked from an abandoned chemical weapon in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang province. (IHT/Asahi: April 9,2007)