A Russian lawmaker said the nation might not be able to meet the April 2012 deadline to eliminate its stockpile of chemical weapons, Defense and Security reported today (see GSN, May 5).
The problem is linked to the delay in beginning operations at the disposal plant at Pochep, which was originally intended to open in 2007, according to Natalia Komarova, head of a parliamentary committee on natural resources and ecology (see GSN, June 17, 2008). Russia is presently "finishing construction of the first part of the plant and was building the second part," she said during a committee discussion on disposal operations in 2008.
Russian officials previously have pledged to meet the deadline set by the Chemical Weapons Convention to finish off the world's largest stockpile, which once stood at 40,000 metric tons of chemical warfare materials. Work is now under way on the third phase of operations, which calls for elimination of 45 percent of the stockpile by December of this year (Defense and Security, May 13).