Iran probably has germ weapons, possibly N.Korea-US

GENEVA, Nov 20 (Reuters) Iran probably has germ warfare weapons, North Korea may have developed them and Syria could have carried out research into such banned weapons, the United States told an arms conference today.

Addressing the opening session of the sixth review conference of the Convention on Biological Weapons (BWC), U S delegation head John C. Rood said those countries were of particular concern given their ''support for terrorism''.

''We believe that Iran probably has an offensive biological weapons programme in violation of the BWC,'' Rood said. ''We also believe North Korea has a biological weapons capability and may have developed, produced and weaponised for use.

''Finally, we remain seriously concerned that Syria ... has conducted research and development for an offensive BW programme,'' he said.

Both Iran and North Korea are members of the 31-year-old BWC, which Syria has signed but not ratified. There was no immediate comment from any of the three states, but in the past they have firmly rejected such allegations.

The conference, held every five years, will review the working of the 155-state treaty which prohibits the development, production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons, and will seek to agree a programme of future work.

Rood, assistant secretary at the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, declined to detail his accusations against the three states. He referred journalists to the August 2005 report by the United States on various countries' compliance with the BWC.

The United States has in the past accused other countries, including Russia and China, of not fully abiding by the treaty.

GROWING THREAT Opening the three-week conference, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for stronger efforts to protect the world against biological weapons, which he said posed a growing threat due to advances in science and technology.

Awareness of the dangers had been heightened by the global concern with terrorism and with new highly infectious natural diseases such as bird flu which had underlined the ability of viruses to kill, he said.

The time had come to ''take further steps to ensure that the Convention will continue to serve as an effective barrier against biological weapons,'' Annan said.

''The horror of biological weapons is shared by all,'' Annan said, urging the states party to the BWC treaty to overcome their differences and boost the pact's effectiveness.

But years of negotiation on a new protocol to strengthen the treaty ended in failure in 2001 because the United States opposed measures such as spot checks on laboratories.

Washington had long been sceptical about the chances of putting in place an effective system of verification of compliance with the treaty and said spot checks could just encourage industrial espionage.

But states agreed to work on improving cooperation in areas such as disease surveillance, the strengthening of national legislation against germ weapons and tightening codes of conduct for scientists.

In the coming five-year period, Rood said the United States wanted enforcement of national laws to be addressed to ensure that non-state actors seeking such weapons were caught and punished.

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