Netherlands and weapons of mass destruction

Although the Netherlands does not have weapons of mass destruction made by itself, the country participates in the NATO nuclear weapons sharing arrangements and trains for delivering U.S. nuclear weapons, i.e., it has weapons of mass destruction made by another country.

The Netherlands is also one of the producers of components that can be used for creating deadly agents, chemical weapons and other kinds of weapons of mass destruction. Several Dutch companies provided Iraq with components for these weapons during the 1980s.

The Netherlands ratified the Geneva Protocol on 31 October 1930. It also ratified the Biological Weapons Convention on 10 April 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention on 30 June 1995.

Uranium enrichment

The Urenco Group operates a uranium enrichment plant at Almelo to produce low-enriched uranium for use in nuclear power plants. The same plant could be used to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU) for use in nuclear weapons. The Netherlands has not actually produced HEU, however; HEU for use in its Petten nuclear research reactor was imported from the U.S. In 2006 the reactor was converted to run on LEU.

Urenco's enrichment technology may have been stolen by Abdul Qadeer Khan in the 1970s as the basis for Pakistan's nuclear enrichment program, which has resulted in Pakistan developing and testing nuclear weapons. See Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction.

United States-NATO nuclear weapons sharing

The Netherlands ratified the...
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