(ANSA) - TRIESTE - Albania will destroy in 2017 all chemical warfare agents which the former communist dictator, Enver Hoxha, had stored on the country territory, Balkan Insight said. A new step in this direction was made on Tuesday: in a ceremony held in the port city of Durres, 160 tons of napalm components were packaged for shipment to France, where they will be destroyed.

Albania's Defence Ministry said that were up to now destroyed 300 tons of hazardous military chemicals: in 2015 Osce helped dispose 116 tons of hazardous chemicals. "The Albanian Armed Forces administer another 150 tons of chemicals stock, which are safely placed in Qafe-Molle base, away from inhabited areas," the military said. They assure that no military chemicals remain in other Albanian military bases. The chemicals are a legacy from the Cold War period, when Hoxha bought them from Russia and China. The process of disposal of the communist arsenal has intensified since the fatal explosion at the Gerdec base near Tirana during a botched programme to destroy old military ordnance: 26 people died and 400 injured.

(ANSA).