¡¡¡¡PANAMA CITY, March 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Panama's President Mireya Moscoso announced on Monday that the United States has committed to eliminating chemical weapons abandoned by its military in the Panamanian island of San Jose in the Pacific.

¡¡¡¡Moscoso met U.S. President George W. Bush in El Salvador at a summit of U.S. and Central American leaders on Sunday.

¡¡¡¡She told reporters that Bush promised to clean up the island which was sealed off months ago after reported existence of undetonated chemical bombs in different sites of the island.

¡¡¡¡Moscoso said Bush also promised to train Panamanian personnel for the decontamination tasks.

¡¡¡¡The Panamanian government has requested the U.S. on different occasions to remove all arms left there during the military exercises in World War II.

¡¡¡¡At the beginning, the U.S. troops said that they were not able to decontaminate these areas without endangering the rain forest ecosystem, and argued that cleaning operations had already been made as extensively as possible.

¡¡¡¡After the U.S. formally ended its military and administrative presence in the Panama Canal area late in 1999, the Moscoso administration tried to resort to an international arbitration mechanism to find a solution to the problem. Enditem