MOSCOW. April 22 (Interfax-AVN) - A delegation of the French general secretariat of national defense led by Major General Benois Bescont has ended its studies of chemical weapons scrapping problems in Russia, Russian Ammunition Agency Director General Zinovy Pak told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
During the visit the delegation negotiated with Pak on possible ways of Russian-French cooperation in sphere of chemical disarmament and visited an installation for scrapping poisonous substances in the town of Shchuchye in the Kurgan region.
The delegation studied Russian chemical weapons scrapping technologies, mobile scrapping systems and means of chemical weapons transportation.
Russian-French cooperation in the sphere of chemical disarmament was discussed for the first time during the French visit of a Russian delegation led by Sergei Kiryenko, chairman of the state commission for chemical disarmament, in September last year, Pak said. The two parties reached an agreement on possible development of mutually profitable cooperation in the sphere.
"Though Russia has so far only received aid for chemical disarmament under the auspices of international cooperation, we are ready to consider a possibility of granting free aid to France in the format of providing research-and-technical knowledge on the issues the French party is interested in, even though a lot of state funds has been spend on obtaining the knowledge," Pak said.
According to Bescont, meetings with Russian scientists and specialists in the sphere prove that the two countries have similar priorities in their work, that is to maintain security of population and environment, and that is why Russian research-and- technical experience is interesting for the French party.
Having visited the installation in Shchuchye, the French delegation praised reliability of its stockpiling and security systems.