23 December 2002 00:00
STATEMENT BY RUSSIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS IGOR IVANOV AFTER MEETING WITH US SENATE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN RICHARD LUGAR (WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 20, 2002)
First of all I would like to express gratitude to Mr. Richard Lugar for the meeting at such an early time. This isn't our first encounter; we've regularly been meeting in Washington or Moscow. Mr. Lugar has long since been taking an active part in the processes involving the liquidation of chemical weapons and other disarmament processes in Russia.
The Nunn-Lugar Program is well known in our country. It is now ten years old, and we are satisfied with the serious big work that has been done over this time. But above all, we pin on this program our hopes for the future. It was from this angle that we examined various problems today. Problems relating to chemical weapons elimination and to the Global Partnership program, approved at the G8 summit in Kananaskis. Problems do occur in the implementation of these programs. Therefore we discuss them so as to jointly solve them and open the way to closer and more productive cooperation. It is crucial that today in the framework of the level of partnership established between our countries, we frankly discuss both the problems and how to solve them, how to advance towards the creation of a more secure world.
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