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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Where are Libya, Turkey’s secret chemical weapons?
09:07 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
THE HAGUE, the Netherlands. Recent revelations were made about secret caches of chemical weapons hidden away by the murdered Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. Canada has donated $4million to help find and destroy these rumoured caches. Libya was in the middle of destroying its chemical weapons facilities when the civil war overthrew the Qadhafi regime. This was announced at the latest meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons by its Turkish director-general, the professional diplomat Mr Ahmet Üzümcü.
Above: the director-general of the Organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, Turkish diplomat Ahmet Üzümcü, speaking at the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Chemical Weapons with a solemn ceremony in its The Hague headquarters’ Ieper Room - named for the town in Flanders where modern chemical weapons were used in April 1915 during world war one by the Germans and the British.
What about the Turkish chemical weapons?
During the May meeting, Mr Üzümcü also revealed the suspected existence of more chemical-weapon stockpiles in Libya – and that Canada has donated $4m to help search for it and destroy it.
However neither Mr Üzümcü, nor his country’s president Abdullah Gül --who visited his office in the Hague two weeks earlier on 18 April 2012 – said anything about Turkey’s own chemical weapons. Mr Gül instead said that OPCW will “lead the path for global disarmament’and urged “intensified efforts to create a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.” http://www.opcw.org/visit-by-the-president-of-turkey/
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,711536,00.html
Libya’s sulfur mustard stockpiles were only 55% demolished in Oct 2010 when the Libyan civil war broke out; after two of three Libya’s chemical-weapons factories were already neutralised:
Qadhafi’s Libya was a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention since January 2004. He officially declared some 25 metric tonnes of a blistering agent, sulfur mustard, and over 3,500 chemical munitions in the form of unfilled aerial bombs. He also declared nearly 1,400 metric tonnes of precursor chemicals that could produce more lethal weapons like the nerve agent sarin, as well as three chemical weapons production facilities. This officially declared arsenal of aerial bombs was crushed with bulldozers in March 2004. It was believed that this had eliminated Libya’s capacity to weaponise its sulfur mustard. Two of its former chemical weapons production facilities were demolished down to their foundations, and with the OPCW’s approval the third facility was converted into a pharmaceuticals plant. It was believed that ‘with these actions the Libyan government gave up its ability to manufacture warfare agents from the precursor chemicals.’ While the sulfur mustard stockpiles were being demolished in October 2010 however, and Libya had already neutralized nearly 55% of its stockpile and was potentially on track to meet the 15 May 2011 deadline set by the OPCW – the entire operation came to a grinding halt when ‘a heating component of the neutralization unit malfunctioned in early February 2011 and the operations came to a grinding halt. This co-incided with the sudden ‘eruption of protests against the Qaddafi government’ which led to the downfall of the Qaddafi clan.
What about the Turkish stockpiles of chemical weapons?
A year earlier, from March 2010 – stories and pictures also started emerging of Kurds – members of the PKK freedom movement - who were being killed with chemical weapons in Turkey. The German Der Spiegel finally broke the international silence in August that year after German experts confirmed the authenticity of photographs showing PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians demanded an investigation. Turkey has been suspected of using chemical weapons for years, pointed out Gisela Penteker, a Turkey expert with the international medical organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. "Local people have said that again and again," she explained. Finding proof is difficult, however, she said, because bodies were often released so late that it was hardly possible to carry out a thorough autopsy. In Turkey, human rights advocates have long demanded an investigation. The army, however, has refused to comment on the issue. Similarly, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been stubbornly silent or tried to portray the accusations of war crimes as "PKK propaganda." http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,711536,00.html
Back to Libya:
On 16 Sept 2011, the UN formally recognised the new government in Tripoli. Col. Qadaffi – one of the few men in the country who could have revealed the locations of his remaining secret stockpiles of chemical weapons – was brutally murdered by a mob:
The OPCW said its technical secretariat now was engaged in regular consultations with the Libyan government and other Member States to enable the return of OPCW inspectors to examine conditions at the storage depot and verify destruction operations when they recommence. Read more http://www.opcw.org/the-opcw-and-libya/
The United States said in a statement that it ‘welcomed the responsible actions of the new Libyan Government in declaring these hidden chemical weapons:… we also welcome the Council's March 27th decision addressing this serious situation. We appreciate Libya's intention... to 'address any matters that need to be clarified with regard to its declaration." The US also noted that more information was needed to find out where these chemical weapons caches were located, the chemical agent they contain, and where these were procured, produced. "
http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/189863.htm and http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/170924.htm
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