The World - News from April 15, 1987

The Soviet Union has stopped producing chemical arms and wants to sign an international pact this year banning such weapons, Soviet negotiator Yuri Nazarkin told a 40-nation disarmament conference in Geneva. He said Moscow had no chemical arms outside its borders and is building a special facility to destroy chemical weapon stocks. Western arms negotiators, while welcoming the new Soviet openness, said the production halt could not be verified and so is virtually meaningless. They speculated that the announcement might be an attempt to spur the U.S. Congress into reversing an American decision to resume chemical arms production later this year.