Moscow, September 7 (AVN) - Russia should blame itself for the suspension of financing of the chemical weapons scrapping programme by US Congress, Sergei Kiriyenko, chairman of the state commission on chemical disarmament and presidential envoy to the Volga federal district, said on Friday.
Russia did not fully implement its obligations under with the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of All Types of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction from 1997 to 2000, Kiriyenko told the Military News Agency.
However implementation of the convention has progressed considerably in the past six months and there are no reasons for the financial aid suspension anymore, the envoy went on. The first and the most important change is that control over chemical weapons stockpiling and scrapping was transferred from the Defence Ministry to the Ammunition Agency. That is how Russia showed the world that its chemical weapons were not weapons anymore for a civilian agency was made responsible for them.
The second change is that the budget allocations for scrapping programme increased six times this year and a further increase is envisaged in the next year's budget. Then, the authorities established the state commission on chemical disarmament which features officials of all interested ministries and agencies such as the Healthcare Ministry, state environment protection committee and several public organisations.
The fourth measure is effective completion of the scrapping programme for chemical weapons of the 3rd category, which comprises powder charges. All weapons of the 2nd category, including phosgene, will be destroyed by the end of the year control of international inspectors. There are 10t of them left in the town of Shchuchye in the Kurgan region.
Kiriyenko praised the role of Zinovy Pak, director general of the Russian Ammunition Agency. Since Pak's agency gained control over the weapons destruction, it has been doing its best to implement the convention. As a result, construction of the first wide-scale installation on chemical weapons scrapping in the Gorny village of the Saratov region has been sped up considerably. According to Kiriyenko, the construction works will end late this year while the launch works and tests are planned for May 2002 when the conference of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is to vote on prolongation of the scrapping terms in Russia until 2012. The first Russian installation will work at full rate of the operation.
After the installation is completed all efforts will be directed at construction of the second installation in Shchuchye.