The last of chemical ammo was destroyed in the Udmurt Republic. Vladimir Putin spoke to the Kizner settlement today via a teleconference. President called Russia's role key in solving the issue of neutralizing chemical weapons in Syria. We just received this statement from the country's leader.
Vladimir Putin: "Today is a very important, almost a historic event. Today, they will neutralize the last weapon of Russia's chemical ammunition arsenal. Without being smug, we can say this is truly a historic event. We mean the large quantities of chemical weapons, which we inherited from the Soviet times. According to the experts, it could've been used to destroy everything on Earth several times.
This is a great step towards making the modern world a more balanced, more secure place. This means our country will fulfill the most essential international obligations, according to the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, fully neutralizing our chemical weapons. With this, let me remind you of the key role Russia plays in neutralizing chemical weapons in Syria. Realization of the Russian program began in the 1990s. Then, our country was in the middle of serious economic difficulties. In early 2000s, we found the resources to speed up the process. In 20 years, a great, large-scale job has been performed.
Modern science-efficient enterprises were created. Domestic technologies have been developed. They've allowed to safely neutralize chemical ammo, keeping up with the harshest environmental standards and requirements. It's important to correctly use the developments in the infrastructure for the growing manufacturing of civil products. Here, we have the Minister of Industry, Denis Valentinovich Manturov. I ask him to specifically report on what's planned for this branch. We've discussed this subject in many meetings. I hope that Russia's efforts to neutralize chemical weapons will serve as an example for other countries.
As we know, the largest owners of chemical weapons were Russia, and the US is still one of them, who, unfortunately, don't fulfill their timeline obligations to neutralize chemical weapons. They've postponed neutralization deadlines 3 times already. Excuses include lack of required finances. Honestly, this sounds a little odd, but we expect the US, along with other countries, to fulfill their obligations within the terms of international agreements. I want to emphasize that our country, even though we planned to complete this work by 2020, we're completing it way before the deadline, in the current year of 2017.
This is an enormous success, this is a result of great, elaborate, responsible work of many people, scientists, engineers, laborers, who worked on enterprises, especially created for this task. I congratulate all of you one more time".
