MOSCOW, September 8 (AVN) - Russia will not be able to complete and put into operation the chemical weapons scrapping plant in the Gorny village of the Saratov region by 2002 without foreign financial aid, a source in the administration of Russian Ammunition Agency chief Zinovy Pak told the Military News Agency on Friday.
Russia signed the international Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of All Types of Chemical Weapons and their Destruction in 1993 and ratified it in 1997, the source said. Under it, the country was to announce the beginning of warfare chemical agents elimination yet five months ago. However none of seven installations to scrap the agents has been put into operation due to underfinancing, he added.
The government only transfers two to seven percent of planned allocations for this purpose a year, the source stressed. Only RUR610m (USD22m) has been provided for the construction of the plant in Gorny since 1993, which makes about 13 percent of its cost. And though Russia was allowed to postpone realisation of the convention for two years, it is hardly likely to meet the deadline on its own.
Aid is likely to come from Germany, which undertook to supply technological and laboratory equipment for the Gorny plant, the source said. A German Bundestag delegation led by subcommittee chairman Uta Zapf has recently visited it and held official negotiations with Pak. By the end of 2000, Germany is to provide DEM39m (USD17.5m) for the plant's construction, but Pak said at the talks that Russia is hoping to receive at least three times more allocations. Zapf promised to raise the issue at the discussion of the 2001 federal budget in the Bundestag in September.
Only as much as DEM130m (USD58.4m) will make it possible to complete construction works in Gorny by the end of 2001 and put the plant into operation in 2002, the source said. Russia is to eliminate the first 400t of chemical weapons in April 2002.