TBILISI, October 5. /TASS/. The management of Georgia’s National Center for Control over Diseases and Public Health denies the development of biological weapons in the Richard Lugar Center and believes these accusations to be misinformation, said the Center’s director, Amiran Gamkrelidze, at a briefing in Tbilisi.

"The misinformation is aimed at casting a shadow over the Center’s operation. I state with all responsibility that the Lugar Center for Public Healthcare is owned by the Georgian government, is a laboratory unit of the Center for Control over Diseases and Public Health and is financed by the country’s government," Gamkrelidze stated.

The Lugar Center has international ISO accreditation in clinical laboratory studies. The Center’s director said that all clinical laboratory diagnostic and scientific studies are being carried under international rules. Georgia and Germany will hold an international seminar involving experts from more than 20 countries to secure the transparency of the center’s operation, he said.

Chief of the NBC Defense Troops Major General Igor Kirillov earlier stated that the Russian sides is waiting for a response from Georgia and the US on why the Lugar Center stores patents for chemical and biological weapons. The military official said that the Lugar Center is just a small element of the massive US military-biological program, with activity carried out in the states bordering Russia, where laboratories controlled by the Pentagon are also operating.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said in a conversation with TASS on Thursday that the US is not developing biological weapons in the Lugar Center. This center is not an American facility, the spokesman said.