Russia Hails Pact on Disarmament Aid

A Russian official Friday praised a compromise with the Bush administration that he said will mean as much as $620 million more from the United States to help Russia dismantle its deadly chemical weapons arsenal.

Sergei V. Kiriyenko, President Vladimir V. Putin’s special envoy for chemical disarmament, said the agreement is crucial for both countries at a time when the world has become more alert to the possibility of chemical weapons’ finding their way into the hands of terrorists.

Kiriyenko answered written questions submitted by The Times one day after returning from the United States and Canada, where he sought renewed international help for the Russian program to destroy an estimated 40,000 tons of chemical weapons.

In 1997, Russia ratified the international Chemical Weapons Convention and promised to destroy its arsenal by 2007. In response, the United States pledged about $880 million to help the Russians, but it halted funding last year after having delivered only about $260 million.

The halt was ordered by Congress, which questioned Russia’s destruction efforts up to that point. Fears were also raised that Russia might not have declared all of its chemical weapons stockpiles.

Kiriyenko visited the United States to discuss those concerns, and after the meetings last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Russia had done enough to warrant the release of the next $50 million in aid for the disarmament effort.

“The most important thing is that we have reached a political solution of the problem, the absence of which had been the main stumbling block,” said Kiriyenko, a former Russian prime minister.

Kiriyenko acknowledged that Washington needed to be convinced that Russia was doing its share in the chemical disarmament field. He said that in his talks with Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, he was able to show that Russia is serious and moving forward.

“Russia got down to it and energetically got everything done,” he said of U.S. demands. “In 2001, the budget financing of the [disarmament] program was increased sixfold, and in 2002, it is being doubled again. In addition, the chemical weapons destruction process has been moved from the Defense Ministry to a civilian agency, the Russian Agency for Munitions.”

Kiriyenko said that as of November, Russia had destroyed Category 3 chemical weapons--the least dangerous--ahead of schedule and that by March, it will have destroyed Category 2 weapons, also ahead of a previously agreed upon timetable.

The government hopes to complete its first plant for destroying Category 1 weapons, the most lethal, this year at Gorny in south-central Russia, he said.

Kiriyenko said that Russia will receive a delegation of U.S. experts Feb. 26 and that the visit will launch a process of consultations meant to clear up any lingering U.S. doubts. During these consultations, he said, the Bush administration will ask Congress to unfreeze the $50 million.

Russia has admitted that, overall, its weapons destruction program is far behind schedule and that it has no chance of meeting the 2007 target for elimination of its entire chemical arsenal.

More U.S. money, however, would allow it to proceed with the building of the biggest destruction facility planned, at Shchuchye in western Siberia. The site houses 14% of Russia’s stockpile, including about 2 million chemical artillery shells and several thousand nerve gas rockets.

“Russia and the United States have a common view on the struggle against international terrorism, and unless all chemical weapons are destroyed, these weapons might theoretically get into the hands of terrorists,” Kiriyenko said. “That is why the destruction of all stockpiles is a priority for both countries.”

Lev Fyodorov, an ecology activist and president of the Union for Chemical Security, a Russian environmental group, said that the U.S.-Russian accords do not cover t120,000 tons of more primitive World War II-era mustard gases and other substances that are no longer usable as weapons but are presumably hidden or buried somewhere in Russia.

“Wherever they are, they still pose a huge ecological danger for Russia,” Fyodorov said.

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Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.