Report: Israel’s Peres Says Government ‘Will Consider’ Ratifying International Treaty on Chemical Weapons
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by Joshua Levitt
Israeli President Shimon Peres. Photo: WikiCommons
Israeli President Shimon Peres said his government “will consider” ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Associated Press reported.
The agreement forbids the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons and automatically leads to membership in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The commitment was signed by Israel, but never formally ratified.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to The Hague, Peres said, “The Syrians were forced this time by an agreement between the United States and Russia to give up their chemical arsenal,” he said. “They didn’t do it before the world threatened them with the military option.”
After Syria’s agreement last week to join the organization, only Israel, Egypt, North Korea, Burma, Angola and South Sudan are not members, the AP reported.
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council ordered the OPCW to help Syria destroy its chemical weapons by mid-2014. Inspectors from the OPCW were leaving the Netherlands on Monday for Syria to begin the process, the AP said.
