U.K. Ambassador in Russia praises Moscow, London for G8 proliferation efforts

Moscow, February 16. British Ambassador to Russia Anthony Brenton touted Moscow and London’s efforts on non-proliferation within the G8 framework on Thursday in Moscow at the presentation of a British scope of work report on Global Partnership efforts against WMD proliferation as Russian officials called for more practical action on the issue.

Brenton called Russia and U.K.’s participation in the Global Partnership a valuable contribution to struggle against terrorism and WMD proliferation.

The two countries need to do more about it, he said. The Ambassador added there was every opportunity to get the Group of Eight to generate new ideas and initiatives.

The United Kingdom was doing its best to ensure that Russia’s assumption of the G8 rotating Presidency, held by the U.K. in 2005, was as smooth as possible, the diplomat said. Brenton promised to render Russia any assistance if needed.

Speaking at the presentation, Valery Biryukov, a senior official at the security and disarmament department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said: “Since 2002, the Russian budget has allocated 979 million rubles ($34.72 million, or Euro 29.14 million) for chemical disarmament.”

“We are going to step up cooperation on Global Partnership as part of Russia’s interaction with G8 partners,” the Russian diplomat said.

At the same time, Biryukov said, “Russia will work further to make sure that its partners’ theoretical statements were realized in practical cooperation” because “the work done on the project so far is still not in line with real needs.”

Biryukov told RIA Novosti that there was partners’ “failure to coordinate and allocate assets in time, which results in timing defaults, and Russia has to look for extra money elsewhere to fill in the gaps.”

At the 2002 G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, the members promised Russia up to $20 billion in aid within 10 years as part of a Global Partnership effort to tackle threats posed by nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, materials and knowledge spread across the states of the former Soviet Union.

print page