"We are working to convince" these states to join the convention, Santiago Onate, adviser to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), told AFP in Qatar on the sidelines of a regional meeting of 28 Asian states that have signed the treaty.

"The latest meeting was last week in Lebanon. We also have talks with Israel, Egypt and Iraq," Onate said.

Other countries that have either not signed or not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention are North Korea, the Bahamas, Myanmar and Syria.

The convention came into force in 1997 and mandated the OPCW to eliminate chemical weapons, including deadly nerve gases, and to verify the destruction of declared chemical weapons stockpiles within stipulated deadlines.

Kalimi Mworia, representing the OPCW's director general at the Doha conference, told delegates that no headway has been made in getting North Korea to join the convention.

The OPCW will continue trying to engage North Korea "in all available fora and seek to convince them that by joining the OPCW, they are contributing to their own security as well as reinforcing international peace and security," she said in a speech on behalf of the organisation's chief.

Mworia, who heads the OPCW's international cooperation and assistance division, said she was "confident that Myanmar will join the OPCW family at an early date."

More than 180 countries have joined the convention.

Chemical weapons expert Mohammad Daoudi told AFP that Arab countries that have not joined the convention -- comprising half of the states which have not subscribed to the ban -- "justify their position by citing Israel's refusal to join any of the treaties banning weapons of mass destruction."

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