The new protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) proposed by Russia would strengthen the international non-proliferation treaty by making all of its provisions mandatory, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Office and other international organizations in Geneva Gennady Gatilov said on Monday
GENEVA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th November, 2022) The new protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) proposed by Russia would strengthen the international non-proliferation treaty by making all of its provisions mandatory, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Office and other international organizations in Geneva Gennady Gatilov said on Monday.
The Ninth Review Conference of the States Parties to the BWC opened earlier in the day in Geneva, Switzerland. The conference will run through December 16. On Saturday, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops at the Russian Defense Ministry, said that Russia would advocate at the conference for supplementing the BWC with a protocol listing prohibited pathogens and outlining a verification mechanism.
"Along with the vast majority of the states-parties, Russia is convinced that the effectiveness of the convention would be significantly enhanced by adopting a universal, legally binding, non-discriminatory protocol that covers all articles of the convention and provides for an effective verification mechanism," Gatilov said at the conference.
The diplomat expressed regret that the development of such a tool has been blocked by the United States since 2001, and emphasized that Russia stands for resuming the work on the protocol.
During its special military operation in Ukraine, Russia says it has discovered a network of more than 30 biological laboratories on Ukrainian territory. According to Kirillov, the Pentagon has been running secret biolabs in Ukraine for years, researching highly dangerous pathogens and exporting biological samples in breach of the BWC.
On Saturday, the Russian defense ministry's chief of biochemical protection said that the Boston University has developed a new coronavirus strain with 80% lethality by combining the Omicron and original Wuhan variants.
