UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Syria have refused to join a treaty banning chemical weapons, thereby posing a danger to 180 nations that have pledged to destroy stockpiles, the head of a monitoring group said on Friday.
Argentine Rogelio Pfirter, director-general of the group that implements the treaty, told a news conference and the U.N. General Assembly that all countries should be obliged to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which came into force in April 1997.
"It is very unfair to other countries if a few countries retain for themselves the privilege of producing chemical weapons when all the others are transparent in this field," said Pfirter, head of the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Even one country refusing to join was a "major loophole" in getting rid of such arms, which include the deadly nerve gas VX and mustard gases, he said.
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