Syria officially joins UN chemical weapons pact

UN confirmed that it has received documents from Syria on joining the Chemical Weapons Convention.

• The convention requires all parties to declare and destroy all of the chemical weapons they possess.
• Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has the job is to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty which came into force in 1997 and which requires all member nations to eliminate their chemical weapons stocks and related facilities.
• The Norwegian Nobel Committee recently awarded the OPCW the Nobel Peace Prize 2013 for “its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”.
• OPCW was created in 1997.
• OPCW is based in The Hague, Netherlands
• Full name of the treaty: “The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction“
• The treaty entered into force in 1997.
• Syria is the 190th country to join the convention.
• Only 6 UN states have yet to sign the international treaty, they are: Angola, Burma, Egypt, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan.