The inspection by the Hague-based Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is routine for signatory states to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Members are obliged to declare plants which produce certain chemicals for industrial, medical, agricultural or other commercial purposes.

OPCW has sent three inspectors -- a Mexican, a Filipino and a Pakistani -- to inspect the country's largest fertilizer plant, the Fauji Jordan Fertilizer.

"The inspection will benefit Pakistan in terms of its credibility as a member state of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)," Pakistani foreign ministry official Tipu Sultan, who heads the ministry's disarmament section, told reporters.

Sultan was speaking outside the plant, some 45-kilometres (27 miles) northeast of Karachi.

He said there was no comparison between the three-member inspection team and United Nations weapons inspectors who had operated in Iraq.

"There is nothing crucial as these (inspections) are not related to that kind of inspections," he said.

The inspectors will check general safety and environmental standards and the consumption of chemicals imported by the plant, an employee of the plant said.

The foreign ministry said last week that the visit was not a chemical weapons inspection as Pakistan was not a chemical weapons state.

Under the CWC "a defined category of industrial units in all member states are visited by officials of the OPCW," it said.

The OPCW has carried out 1,400 inspections in more than 50 countries.

SPACE.WIRE