The substance, banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) – an international agreement in which Pyongyang is not a signatory – was developed in Britain in the 1950s.
Preliminary tests by the chemistry department on the body of Kim Jong Nam found traces of VX, a chemical substance classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
Jong Nam’s death following an attack by two women at low-cost carrier terminal klia2 on Feb 13 has triggered a diplomatic crisis between Malaysia and North Korea.
There is strong suspicion of Pyongyang’s hands behind the death. Jong Nam is the estranged half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and considered a threat to the regime.
Man-made gas
The substance, Ethyl (S)-2 diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothiolate, found in samples taken from Jong Nam’s eyes and face, is regarded the most potent of all nerve agents, even more dangerous than sarin, a poisonous gas used in chemical warfare including in the Syrian civil war in 2013.
VX is described as an “oily liquid” which is amber in colour, odourless and tasteless. It is entirely man-made as the gas cannot be found naturally.
In vapour form, VX is the “quickest and deadliest” form of gas and as a liquid can be used to poison water and food.
Large doses of VX can result in convulsions, unconsciousness, paralysis and death due to respiratory failure, with symptoms showing immediately to 18 hours later.
North Korea’s association with VX is not new. In 2013, a prominent North Korea analyst, Joseph S Bermudez Jr wrote on the reclusive country’s chemical warfare capabilities.
He said the North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) has in its keep riot-control agents adamsite and chloroacetophenone, hydrogen cyanide, sulfur mustard, phosgene, as well as nerve agents, sarin, soman, tabun and V-agents, namely VM and VX, among others.
Self-sufficient
Bermudez, quoting the regime’s defectors, said North Korea produced 20 different chemical agents for use in weapons, focusing on the likes of sulfur mustard, phosgene, sarin and V-agents.
“The DPRK (North Korea) is almost certainly self-sufficient in the production of all necessary precursor chemicals for first generation chemical agents, including nerve agents,” said Bermudez in his article on 38 North, a website devoted to analysing North Korea.
In 2013, North Korea was estimated to have between 2,500 and 5,000 metric tonnes of chemical agents, the bulk of which was mustard, phosgene, sarin and V-agents.
North Korea, alongside five other countries, is not a signatory of the CWC. The convention prohibits use of chemical weapons in warfare, but doesn’t prevent a state from producing or possessing chemical warfare.
North Korea has always denied accusations by Washington that it has chemical weapons.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a Washington-based anti-nuclear think tank, estimates that North Korea is one of the “world’s largest possessors” of chemical weapons behind United States and Russia.