A senior State Department official told the annual meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons that Myanmar was in breach of the Chemicals Weapons Convention.
“The US has serious concerns that a chemical weapons stockpile may remain at Myanmar’s historical chemical weapons facility,” Thomas DiNanno, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, told the Organisation of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Monday.
According to DiNanno, the US has information that Myanmar had not yet declared or destroyed a 1980s-era chemical weapons programme which included a sulphur mustard development programme and a chemicals weapons production facility.
“Based on available information, the United States certifies that Myanmar is in non-compliance with the CWC, due to its failure to declare its past chemical weapons programme and to destroy its chemical weapons facility."
This is not the first time Myanmar has faced accusations of maintaining a chemicals weapons program. In 2013, a parliamentary report accused police of using phosphorus against protestors.
In 2014, five journalists were sentenced to 10 years in prison over an article showing the military producing chemical arms.
The article, published in Unity Journal, alleged that Myanmar had been working on a secret chemicals weapons production facility in the Pauk Township of the Magwe Division since 2009. The government denied the charges, saying the facility was a standard ordinance factory.
Myanmar ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2015, which prohibits the development or production of chemical weapons.
The US official said that Washington had held talks with Myanmar’s government and military and stood “ready to assist Myanmar” in destroying these weapons.
With inputs from PTI
