MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. Russia is inviting the United States to the negotiating table to discuss US military-biological activity near Russia’s borders, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on Friday.
"With the aim of lifting questions concerning the United States’ military-biological activity along Russia’s perimeter borders we believe it is necessary to employ the mechanism established under article V of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which stipulates the signatories are obliged to hold consultations with each other in deciding any questions regarding the purpose of the convention or in connection with the implementation of its provisions. We confirm the readiness to come to the negotiating table with our American counterparts to discuss the questions that we have," she said.
Russia systematically presses for strengthening the BTWC regime for countering the threats of biological agents being used in the capacity of weapons, Zakharova recalled.
"We are for the resumption of the work on a legally binding protocol to the Convention that would establish an effective verification mechanism, which the United States has blocked since 2001. In this connection we call for creating an open working group within the BTCW framework, which meets the interests of an overwhelming majority of member-states," Zakharova said.
Moscow supports the idea of forming on the BTWC platform special mobile biomedical teams for providing assistance in case of the use of biological weapons and for struggle against epidemics, and also creating a scientific-consultative committee for the analysis of scientific and technological achievements and providing corresponding recommendations to countries, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.
Also, Russia suggests including information about military-biological activity abroad in the annual reports presented by the signatories to the convention within the framework of confidence-building measures.
"Washington has shown no readiness to share such information, though," Zakharova said.
On the pretext of providing sanitary and epidemiological assistance the Pentagon has launched a massive program for building and upgrading microbiological laboratories in the former Soviet republics.
"As long as a verification mechanism within the BTWC framework is absent, it will be impossible to control the rules and degree of involvement of such laboratories in secret research programs of the US Department of Defense," Zakharova said. "In the meantime, the strains of pathogens of infectious diseases, created by US military biologists, may be used for purposes incompatible with the interests of the national security Russia and other CIS countries.".