Chemical weapon proliferation

Many nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon agents despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them. Most states have joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, which requires the destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012. Twelve nations have declared chemical weapons production facilities and six nations have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons. All of the declared production facilities have been destroyed or converted to civilian use after the treaty went into force. According to the United States government, at least 17 nations currently have active chemical weapons programs.

To the right is a summary of the nations that have either declared weapon stockpiles, or are suspected of secretly stockpiling or possessing CW research programs.

Albania, as a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, declared in March 2003 a stockpile of 16 tons of chemical agents. On July 11, 2007, with the help of the U.S. government's Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the Ministry of Defence announced successful destruction of the entire stockpile.

Angola has been accused of using chemical weapons in its civil war.

According to the testimony Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, it is very probable that China has an advanced chemical warfare program, including research and development, production, and weaponization capabilities. Furthermore, there is considerable concern from the U.S. regarding China's contact and sharing of chemical weapons expertise with other states of proliferation concern, including Syria and Iran. Chinese government has declared that it had possessed small arsenal of chemical weapons in the past but that it had destroyed it before ratifying Convention. It has declared only two former chemical production facilities that may have produced mustard gas and Lewisite.

According to a United Nations finding which cited suspicious residue affecting plant and animal life during the Cuban intervention in Angola, sarin and VX had been deployed against Angolan militants by the Cuban Army.

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