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Published on Friday, December 7, 2001 by Reuters
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U.S. Forces Suspension of Germ War Pact, EU Angry
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GENEVA - The United States forced an
international conference on germ warfare to break up in
disarray on Friday, angering even its European allies.
In a bid to save face, the review conference of the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention agreed to suspend work for a year until November 2002 after Washington tabled what one European delegate called a ``conference breaker.'' In a last-minute proposal, Washington formally demanded the winding up of a committee that had spent years trying to negotiate a deal to give teeth to a 1972 pact outlawing biological weapons. The U.S. move, which caught even European Union states by surprise, came just an hour before the formal end of the three-week-long meeting aimed at finding ways to strengthen the 30-year-old pact. ``They have fired a missile at the conference. We are deeply disappointed,'' said one senior European diplomat. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited ### |