UK calls for global chemical weapons conference following Salisbury nerve agent attack

Foreign Secretary asks for 'all right-thinking states to come together'

Members of the military work in the Maltings shopping area, close to the bench where Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found collapsed (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Britain is calling for a global conference on chemical weapons in wake of attacks in Syria, Iraq and Salisbury.

The proposed meeting of the signatories of the Chemical Weapons Convention has already received the backing of 10 other states, apart from the UK. It needs the support of 64 of 192 signatories to trigger a conference within 30 days.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the special conference would aim to “reaffirm and defend” the ban on use of the outlawed weapons and strengthen the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The move comes just under three months after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in an attack Britain has blamed on Russia.

The sponsors of the letter want the conference to examine ways the international community could work together to strengthen and protect the convention.

“The world came together in 1997 to outlaw the development, stockpiling and use of these vile substances through the Chemical Weapons Convention,” said Mr Johnson.

“But in recent years we have seen chemical attacks by the Assad regime in Syria, by Daesh in Syria and Iraq, in Malaysia and even here in the UK in Salisbury.

“Today we have brought together 11 states to formally ask the director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to convene a special Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

“We call on all right-thinking states to come together next month to take action to reaffirm and defend the ban on chemical weapons, and to strengthen the Organisation which we have entrusted with overseeing it.”

Earlier this week, medics who treated the Skripals told of how they “expected them not to survive” when they first arrived at Salisbury District Hospital. When Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey was brought in with similar symptoms, they feared many more could fall victim to the chemical weapon and trigger an “all-consuming crisis”, said the hospital’s director of nursing Lorna Wilkinson.

The outgoing head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ahmet Üzümcü, suggested last week the watchdog could start name the culprits behind chemical attacks, saying the attempted murder of the Skripals should be a “serious wake up call” to the international community

Press Association contributed to this report