BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday urged Japan to abide by a commitment to destroy chemical weapons abandoned in China during World War II.

    Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu made the remarks in a comment on a report by the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun that Japan had decided to freeze its abandoned chemical arms destruction program in the Harbaling area of China's Jilin Province and slash the associated spending.

    "China has demanded that the Japanese side clarify the report. The Japanese side said clearly that the report does not conform to the fact, and there's no change to the government's principle to speed up the process of dealing with the chemical weapons it abandoned in China during World War II," Jiang said.

    In 1999, the two countries signed the Convention on the Banning of Chemical Weapons and a memorandum on the destruction of abandoned chemical weapons, in which Japan promised to properly handle the related problems.

    Under these agreements, Japan last month sent a commission to try to remove the weapons. However, the number of weapons removed, and the time spent doing so, has not been publicized.

    According to Chinese data, Japan abandoned at least 2 million tons of chemical weapons at about 40 sites in 15 provinces at the end of World War II, mostly in three northeastern provinces: Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.