According to a source with Chinese Foreign Ministry, at the request of the Chinese side, a Japanese team led by Director of Japanese Abandoned Chemical Weapons Office Suda Akio excavated the buried weapons in Bei'an City of Heilongjiang Province between September 13 and 27.

During the 15-day operation, the Japanese team dug out 2800-odd artillery shells, including 897 chemical shells, and cleared 2.7 tons of contaminated soil. All these have been packaged and transported to special facilities for storage before eventual destruction.

A Chinese team headed by Ambassador Liu Zhigang, director of Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Chemical Weapons Abandoned by Japan in China, provided necessary aid for the operation, said the source.

The weapons were accidentally discovered by local farmers in 1997, and were soon verified by Chinese experts as chemical weapons abandoned by Japan.

After rounds of diplomatic consultations, Japan sent several teams to conduct on-the-spot investigation on the matter and finally agreed to carry out the excavation.

To handle such a problem left over by the Japanese invasion of China half a century ago, the Chinese and Japanese governments formally signed a memorandum of understanding in July, 1999, in which the Japanese side admitted the fact of having abandoned chemical weapons in China and committed to destroying them in line with the obligations provided in the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC).

This is the first time that Japan has carried out such an operation in China after the signing of the memo.

Relevant departments from the two countries are discussing specific measures as to how to eventually destroy the abandoned chemical weapons as soon as possible, said the source.

(People's Daily 10/01/2000)