Chemical security

N. Korea has ‘1000s of tons of chemical weapons’ scattered across country – Seoul

South Korea's foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, has warned that the North has "thousands of tons of chemical weapons" across the country and called to suspend Pyongyang from the UN.

Yun Byung-se has called for invoking a chemical weapons convention in light of the assassination that killed the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Malaysia.

"North Korea is reported to have not just grams but thousands of tonnes of chemical weapons including VX all over the country...the recent assassination is a wake-up call to all of us to North Korea's chemical weapons capability and its intent to actually use them," the minister said as quoted by Reuters.

He also warned that within North Korea's stockpile is VX, the nerve agent which is believed to have killed Kim's half-brother Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport earlier this month.

The statement made at a UN disarmament conference in Geneva comes after Seoul signed a land swap deal with retail giant Lotte, which will allow South Korea to host the controversial US THAAD missile system. Both Seoul and Washington say the system is a defensive measure against Pyongyang.