§ Mr. Cohenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether British representatives attended the workshop on chemical weapon arms control organised by the Netherlands Government in June in the Hague; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. RentonA workshop on the verification of a chemical weapons ban was held in the Netherlands from 4 to 6 June 1986. Its main purpose was to evaluate an experimental inspection of a modern chemical plant to test in practice some verification procedures. Representatives attended this workshop from most of the delegations to the conference on disarmament. Three representatives attended from the United Kingdom, including the leader of the United Kingdom delegation, Dr. Ian Cromartie, who is this year chairing the chemical weapons negotiations.
The verification of non-production of chemical weapons will be an important element of a chemical 367W weapons ban and the United Kingdom has tabled three papers on this topic. We were pleased that the experimental inspection was able to make use of the idea in these papers. We believe that the workshop has enabled valuable lessons to be drawn, which now need to be reflected in agreement in the negotiations.