TBILISI. Sept 17 (Interfax) - The laboratory named after Senator Richard Lugar is working transparently in Georgia and the recent accusations made by Russia regarding its operations are groundless, a Georgian official said.
"No secret experiments are being conducted in this center, let alone those involving people, it's completely absurd," Zurab Abashidze, the Georgian prime minister's special representative on relations with Russia, told Georgia's Channel One on Saturday.
The laboratory is property of Georgia and it is financed from the Georgian budget, he said.
"Similar laboratories exist in many countries, including Russia. The Lugar laboratory is working in a transparent manner, its doors are open to foreign scientists and experts," Abashidze said.
An international seminar attended by experts from 20 countries will be conducted on the territory of this facility on November 14-15 to ensure the transparency of this center, he said.
The organizers of the seminar have offered Russian experts to attend the seminar, too, Abashidze said. "Unfortunately, the organizers received a refusal from the Russian authorities on the issue of participation by experts from Russia in this seminar," he said.
The Georgian official said periodic accusations made by Russia regarding this laboratory are fully unfounded, adding that he believes they serve Russia's foreign policy goals.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has earlier expressed concern that U.S. medico-biological research poses a threat of spreading dangerous infections in the FSU states. She in particular cited the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research in a Tbilisi suburb as an example, as the latter is examining especially dangerous infections and viruses, and their germs.
Igor Giorgadze, who was Georgia's state security minister in 1993-1995, told a press conference in Moscow on September 11 that a laboratory operating not far from Tbilisi under the aegis of the U.S. may produce especially hazardous bacteria and viruses. Specifically, he cited a testimony made by American Jeffrey Silverman, who said that the Lugar laboratory "was manufacturing substances dangerous for health and tested them on local residents." "They are producing anthrax, plague and swine flu," Giorgadze said.
The Russian Defense Ministry later said that there were indications of serious breaches by the United States of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. "The outrageous facts and documents that have been published contain indications of serious breaches by the United States of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction ratified by the U.S. in 1972," the Russian Defense Ministry said in its report released on September 14.