Russia completed destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile in 2017 and received congratulations from OPCW officials for doing so. US lags, hopes to finish eliminating its chemical weapons stockpile by Dec. 2023

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“On Wednesday [9/27/2017] the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü of Turkey, congratulated Russia on completing the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile.”…US “sites are scheduled to complete destruction of chemical weapons by December 31, 2023, officials said.”

9/29/2017, “Celebrating a milestone: Russia completes the destruction of chemical weapons stockpile,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sipri, Dr. John Hart

“On Wednesday [2017] the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü of Turkey, congratulated Russia on completing the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile which originally totalled 39 967 agent tonnes (i.e. excluding munition weight). This represents a major milestone towards realizing a world without chemical weapons as envisaged by the negotiators of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

The experience gained from a 1989 Memorandum of Understanding and a 1990 Bilateral Destruction Agreement concluded between the Soviet Union and the United States partly informs the procedures by which possessor states declare their chemical weapons to the OPCW and how the OPCW verifies their destruction. Over the years Russia and the USA have consulted each other on the development of common understandings on the selection and optimization of chemical weapons destruction technologies, including within the framework of the 1992 Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. Other states (such as Germany) and civil society (such as Green Cross Russia and Global Green USA) have played important roles in such efforts, including by supporting risk assessment and public outreach at Russia’s seven chemical weapons storage facilities.

As a rule, the completion of destruction operations is marked by a closing ceremony with the OPCW Director-General (or other designated representative) in attendance. However, such a ceremony was deemed infeasible in this case (for unclear reasons) and Ambassador Üzümcü issued his statement at the OPCW headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands.

The USA...has completed the destruction of approximately 90 per cent of its stockpile and

is scheduled to finish its operations by 2023….

The CWC regime remains a platform for the member states to cooperate on technical matters. It is imperative for the OPCW to retain its capacity to help to ensure that the threat of chemical warfare does not re-emerge over the indefinite future.”

“Dr John Hart was an Associate Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme.”

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Added: 9/27/2017, NY Times, OPCW official congratulates Russian Federation on full elimination of its chemical weapons stockpiles. US hopes to be finished destroying its stockpile “by the end of 2023:”

“Hamid Ali Rao, the deputy director of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, [OPCW] Hague-based body that polices adherence to the 1993 convention, declared the event “a truly momentous occasion.” He said that it “signals the full elimination of all chemical weapon stockpiles declared by the Russian Federation.”“ (end of NY Times article)...

The United States aims for “destruction of its declared chemical weapons stockpile

by the end of 2023.”…

“Russia Destroys Chemical Weapons, and Faults U.S. for Not Doing So,” NY Times, Andrew Higgins, 9/27/2017

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Added: 1/21/2020. US still working on destroying its own chemical weapons stockpiles, hopes to finish by Dec. 2023:

1/21/2020, “Destruction of deadly chemical agent sarin begins at Bluegrass Army Depot," Lexington Herald [Kentucky], by Valerie Honeycutt Spears

“Full-scale destruction of the deadly chemical agent sarin began last week at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County, [Kentucky] officials said Tuesday….

The chemical weapons stockpile at Blue Grass Army Depot originally consisted of approximately 523 tons of chemical agent configured in 155mm projectiles containing H mustard and VX nerve agent, 8-inch projectiles containing sarin, and M55 rockets containing sarin and VX nerve agent.

In June 2019, an explosive destruction technology began destroying

the mustard stockpile.

As of January 10, [2020] more than 15 tons of chemical agent have been destroyed in Kentucky, a news release said….

[As of Jan. 2020] It is the first time a nerve agent has been destroyed in the United States in about a decade [2010], officials said.

Stockpile sites in Colorado and Kentucky account for the last 10 percent of what was originally a national stockpile of more than 30,000 tons of chemical weapons.

Both sites are scheduled to complete destruction of chemical weapons

by December 31, 2023, officials said.”

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