Russia, Ukraine Sign Accord on Nuclear Arms Destruction
Russia and Ukraine have signed an agreement resuming the transfer of Ukraine’s tactical nuclear weapons to Russia for destruction, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency said Thursday.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk told a high-level U.S. delegation in Kiev this week that he signed the accord, and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev told Secretary of State James A. Baker III in a telephone call Thursday that Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin had done likewise.
“The United States is very pleased to learn that this agreement has been signed by both presidents,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said in Washington.
Yeltsin has also signed a decree committing Russia to an international treaty banning germ warfare, his spokesman said Thursday.
This decree declares that Russia, as successor to the Soviet Union, will abide by the accord banning the production and use of biological weapons, Yeltsin’s spokesman, Alexei Novikov, said.
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