Libya says last chemical weapons stocks shipped out

Tripoli // Libya has shipped the last of its chemical weapons stocks out of the country under a UN-backed plan to ensure the arsenal could not fall into the wrong hands.

The move will ease fears that extremists like ISIL could gain access to the weapons in Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi.

A senior security official said the stocks, including 23 tanks of chemicals, were shipped out on a Danish vessel on Saturday from the port of Misurata, under the supervision of the United Nations, and were destined for Germany.

The stocks had been stored in the central Jafa area, about 200 kilometres south of Sirte where Libyan forces are battling ISIL, he said.

“We as Libyans did not want these weapons, especially during the current security situation and with the presence of ISIL in the region,” the security official said.

The deputy prime minister of Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), Mussa El Koni, confirmed the operation.

“All of Libya’s chemical arsenal has been shipped out of the country,” he said. “This is good news for Libya, and for the peace of Libya, and we thank all the countries that participated and the UN.”

The Danish government had earlier this month offered to send a container vessel, support ship and 200 staff to handle the operation, coordinated by the UN-backed Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The OPCW said it would not disclose operational details of an ongoing effort.

It specified however that the stocks in question “are industrial chemicals in wide use as well as precursor chemicals that are several stages away from being actual chemical weapons.”

A German defence ministry spokesman said the shipment would arrive in Germany “in the coming weeks” and contained “about 500 tonnes of toxic chemical products” that would be destroyed by GEKA, Germany’s state-owned company for disposing of chemical weapons.

“These chemical products can be used to produce toxic gases or warfare agents, but are not toxic gases or warfare agents,” the spokesman said.

The UN Security Council on July 22 endorsed plans to remove Libya’s remaining chemical weapons from the country.

Libya joined the UN convention on eliminating chemical weapons in 2004 as part of Qaddafi’s ultimately abortive efforts to shake off the country’s pariah status and mend relations with the West.

The convention uses a broad definition of “chemical weapons” to include not only those already prepared for delivery but also toxic chemicals intended for use in weapons and the precursors used to create them.

At the time Libya joined the convention, it declared 24.7 tonnes of sulphur mustard, 1,390 tonnes of precursor chemicals and more than 3,500 aerial bombs containing chemical weapons.

It had eliminated all the aerial bombs, 51 per cent of the sulphur mustard and 40 per cent of the precursor chemicals by 2011, when operations to destroy the arsenal were interrupted by the uprising against Qaddafi, according to the OPCW.

*Agence France-Presse