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- Washington - The United States acknowledged late on Wednesday
it will miss - by more than three years - an important international deadline
for destroying its arsenal of chemical weapons.
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- The US Defence Department said in a statement it will
not to able to liquidate 45 percent of its chemical stockpile by April
29 2004, as required by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
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- "The United States is therefore requesting the Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) grant an extension of the
45 percent destruction deadline," the statement said.
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- The military is now expected to be ready to reach the
required milestone by December 2007, the Pentagon said.
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- No detailed explanation for the postponement was given.
But the department pointed out that its chemical demilitariation programme
"has had several delays due to unresolved political and operational
issues that forced operational shutdowns or postponed start-up dates."
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- http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1411458,00.html
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