Watchdog looks to counter new chemical weapons threats

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, entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention with a three-day conference starting Monday focusing on chemical safety and security.

It appears, in the future, extremists and criminals seem more likely than nations to launch chemical attacks.

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

There have been repeated reports of chemical attacks in Syria’s devastating civil war and a U.N.-mandated investigation is underway aimed at apportioning blame for nine cases in 2014 and 2015. 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 the world over 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, the OPCW has been considering it since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, but it has been brought into sharper focus by the attacks in Syria.

At the conference starting Monday, experts will discuss how to use the existing chemical weapons convention to tackle the problem and whether the OCPW needs to adapt to the new reality.

Ralf Trapp, a former OPCW staffer who is now an independent disarmament and non-proliferation consultant, says protecting people from attacks using readily available chemicals is a difficult 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 group in Syria and Iraq.