I'm afraid not - goon squads around the world still has tons of chemical weapons for use against pesky protests. And then we're not talking about all the toxic stuff they use during colonialist wars under the thin pretext of "defoliants"...
You don't even have to have nefarious intentions. Chlorine gas is a perfectly normal industrial chemical, but simply dropping a few tanks over a trench system turns it into a chemical weapon.
Yeah, sure, there are no stockpiles hidden somewhere by secret services or criminal enterprises. 🤔
Thus the quotes.
This is still pretty big, though. I imagine further legislation will be easier if the negotiators can say that legally nobody has any chemical weapons right now.
Of course, I'm sure there's facilities that could start making them in a hurry.
Also, the world at least claiming there aren’t any may increase the political costs of their use. Any country that wants to use them will face the backlash or being the “only one” to have them, even if it may not technically be the truth.
somewhere by secret services or criminal enterprises.
You say that as if they are two separate things.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the big players have replaced chemical weapons with something just as horrible but more "smart" like micro-drones with explosive charges and facial recognition.
tldr; the world's warmongers announced they finally destroyed the last of their chemical weapons, at least the ones they decladed to have.
Hence the quotes.
Did you expect nuances from someone directly transcribing "The US has officially..." into "the world's warmongers announced..."?
Suuuure
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