MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - Russia should be able to destroy all its stockpiles of chemical weapons by 2012, a first deputy prime minister said on Tuesday.
"The most important deadline for us is 2012, when we must complete the destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles in line with our [international] obligations," Sergei Ivanov said at a meeting of a commission on export controls.
Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the development, production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical arms in 1993 and ratified it in 1997. The country is to destroy all its declared arsenal of 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons by 2012.
By April 2007, Russia had destroyed 20% of its chemical weapons, or 8,000 metric tons. The country plans to bring the figure up to 45% by the end of 2009 and finish the process by 2012.
