MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Polish Ambassador to Russia Stefan Meller and Director General of the Russian Conventional Weapons Agency Viktor Kholstov signed the Technical Executive Agreement on implementing a joint chemical disarmament project in Moscow on Friday.
"The Technical Executive Agreement is aimed at implementing the first project of technology development and creation of the experimental industrial facility for processing stocks obtained through lewisite destruction," Meller told Interfax-Military News Agency.
He recalled that the legal foundation for the signing of the document is the Russian-Polish intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in chemical weapons destruction signed in Warsaw on December 17, 2002.
The Technical Executive Agreement's signing coincided with the first anniversary of the commissioning of Russia's first full- scale chemical weapons destruction facility in the town of Gorny in the Saratov region. The facility is disposing of lewisite, a combat agent of Category One.
Over five tonnes of lewisite have been destroyed in Gorny, which produced about 31 tonnes of stocks. They are kept in temporary storehouses and pose no threat, because their toxicity is comparable to that of common chemical industry waste.
The facility in Gorny earlier disposed of 622.3 tonnes of yperite, producing 1,371.6 tonnes of stocks.