The 184 signatories to the 1971 Biological Weapons Convention have agreed to strengthen this treaty to prevent the use of this type of weaponry after 20 years of stalled negotiations.
The signatories will also consider confidence-building measures to improve cooperation and support the poorest countries, as well as a verification mechanism to ensure that the Convention’s rules are respected ahead of the next review conference, scheduled in five years’ time.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the breakthrough and stressed that it could serve as the basis for an agreement to reduce the risk of biological weapons use. This agreement «represents a glimmer of hope in a gloomy international security environment».
This pact follows the failure of other disarmament initiatives, mainly due to Russia’s distancing and confrontational stance in international forums since its invasion of Ukraine in February of this year.
Moscow has again accused the U.S. and Ukraine since Geneva of having secret laboratories on Ukrainian soil to produce biological weapons, but continues to provide no evidence. Washington and Kiev have denied these accusations.
Russia took advantage of the closing of the negotiations on Friday afternoon to attack Kiev and its allies, despite the fact that this forum is usually used to thank the coordination of the conference. The U.S. delegation left the room in protest.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
