A U.N. inspector examines Iraqi chemical weapons discovered following the 1991 Gulf War. The United States is considering whether to destroy decrepit weapons found after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion (U.N. photo). U.S. Senators Anxious About Iraqi Chemical Weapons By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Two U.S. senators raised the idea last week that the United States should do more to help eliminate hundreds of aging chemical weapons shells stockpiled in Iraq (see GSN, June 30, 2006)...Full Story

Iran to Deploy 6,000 New Centrifuges Iran plans to begin installing several thousand new uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz facility, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today (see GSN, April 7)...Full Story

Universal Membership Crucial for CWC, Officials Say By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire THE HAGUE — The dozen nations that remain outside the Chemical Weapons Convention threaten its ability to ensure the worldwide elimination of munitions carrying sarin and other lethal agents, the head of the treaty’s verification agency said yesterday (see GSN, April 3)...Full Story

Nations Demand Adherence to CW Disposal Deadlines By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire THE HAGUE — While rarely identifying Russia and the United States by name, members of the Chemical Weapons Convention made it clear this week they expect the two countries to finish destroying their chemical arsenals as required by the treaty in the next four years (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2006)...Full Story

	Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Iran to Deploy 6,000 New Centrifuges Iran plans to begin installing several thousand new uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz facility, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today (see GSN, April 7). “Today, the phase for installing 6,000 new centrifuges at the facility in Natanz has started,” Iranian state media quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a tour of the enrichment complex. The planned centrifuges would roughly triple the number of machines at the site, expanding on a program suspected by the United States of seeking to produce a uranium for nuclear weapons.  Iran maintains that the program would only support Tehran’s nascent nuclear power capabilities (Agence France-Presse/Google News, April 8). Iranian television did not specify whether the new centrifuges would include a high-speed, advanced model Iran is developing or only the older P-1 model that makes up the bulk of the 3,000 centrifuges currently at the site, the Associated Press reported (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Boston Herald, April 8). The Islamic Republic News Agency said that Ahmadinejad examined a “new generation” of centrifuges in the Natanz site’s above-ground experimental section, AFP reported. Ahmadinejad’s announcement alarmed Western powers that have imposed several sets of international penalties in attempts to pressure Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. The British foreign office said in a statement that Iran had “chosen to ignore the will of the international community” and is “making no effort to restore international confidence in its intentions.” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that if Iran continues to defy international demands over its nuclear program, “reinforced” sanctions would have to be considered.  White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe reiterated the threat of imposing further sanctions (AFP). Gregory Schulte, U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, called on Iran to reconsider suspending its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a package of diplomatic and financial incentives put forward in June 2006 by the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany. “Today’s announcement shows clear intent to even further violate Security Council requirements.  Negotiation, not escalation, provides the best path to international respect and regional security,” Schulte said in a statement (U.S. release, April 8). Meanwhile, the six world powers have planned to meet next month to discuss methods to approach Iran in the standoff, AP reported yesterday. “I can only narrow it down to mid-April,” U.S. State Department spokesman McCormack said when asked about an upcoming meeting between officials from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.  “We’re going to let our hosts announce the meeting” (Associated Press II/International Herald Tribune, April 7). Back to top       No Breakthrough in U.S.-North Korean Nuclear Talks U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill hinted at progress in resolving an impasse over implementing a six-party North Korean denuclearization deal following talks with his North Korean counterpart in Singapore today, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, April 7). “We had a good discussion of all the issues,” Hill told journalists after a four-and-a-half-hour meeting with North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan.  “We will not be announcing any agreement of any kind here in Singapore but, if all goes well, I hope we can have some further statements in Beijing tomorrow which would involve some follow-on activity.” Washington has contended that North Korea has not declared the full scope of its nuclear activities, as required by the 2007 deal, and North Korea has complained that U.S. officials have stalled in meeting their own commitments, such as striking North Korea from a U.S. list of state supporters of terrorism. “I would say we took the discussion beyond where we had it in Geneva,” Hill said, referring to his previous meeting with Kim last month.  “I’m leaving Singapore with a feeling that we did as much as we could … I think it’s been a good day in Singapore” (Agence France-Presse/Google News, April 8). Meanwhile, North Korea yesterday accused the United States of planning to arm Taiwan with nuclear weapons after the U.S. Defense Department last month reclaimed six electronic nuclear missile fuses sent to the country in 2006, the Yonhap News Agency reported. In Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s communist party newspaper, Pyongyang rejected the Pentagon’s statement that the missile parts were transferred accidentally. “It is not a mistake,” the publication said, adding that Washington has not taken sufficient measures against proliferation of its own nuclear materials (Yonhap News Agency I/Hankyoreh, April 8). Back to top       Nuclear Confession “Saved” Pakistan, Khan Says Former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan said Sunday that he accepted personal responsibility in 2004 for providing nuclear knowledge and technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea to absolve Pakistan’s government, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, April 2). “I saved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear nation and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself,” Khan said in a phone interview from his Islamabad home, where he has been held under house arrest since delivering the confession. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has denied any government role in Khan’s black market network, but has blocked international demands to interview Khan (see related GSN story, today). “Even [former Pakistani Prime Minister] Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain (a senator from the party that backs Musharraf) said I saved Pakistan by accepting the whole blame myself” Khan said. He said he has received no notification about his possible release.  “No government official has so far contacted me about my release nor would I contact any of them to do so,” Khan said.  “You had better ask this question of the government.” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said yesterday that he supported ending Khan’s confinement, “He is a Pakistani, a respected Pakistani,” he said.  “He should be allowed to go and have a meal at a restaurant, I see no reason why he should be deprived of that, on the other hand we also have to be concerned about his security and health” (see GSN, March 5; Agence France-Presse/Google News, April 7). Qureshi said the International Atomic Energy Agency would not be allowed to question Khan if he is released, Kyodo News reported. However, the Pakistan Peoples Party — of which Qureshi is a member — has said during a political campaign that it would provide IAEA officials access to the scientist (Kyodo News/BreitBart, April 7). Musharraf supports Khan’s continued confinement, and the Pakistani army wants to maintain his detention on grounds that allowing Khan any freedom could make it easier for the United States to speak with him, The Australian reported Saturday (Bruce Loudon, The Australian, April 5). Back to top       Study Warns of Nuclear War’s Environmental Effects A South Asian nuclear war would have global environmental consequences that could persist for a decade after the immediate carnage, according to a study published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (see GSN, June 5, 2002). Using computer models of atmospheric dynamics, the U.S. scientists found that large portions of the Earth’s ozone layer would be destroyed following a 50-warhead exchange between India and Pakistan.  Smoke from the detonations would foster chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere that would lead to problems back on the Earth’s surface. “We would see a dramatic drop in ozone levels that would persist for many years and it could have huge effects on human health and on our terrestrial, aquatic and marine environments,” said research team leader Michael Mills of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmosphere and Space Physics (David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle, April 8). Back to top

U.S. Senators Anxious About Iraqi Chemical Weapons By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON — Two U.S. senators raised the idea last week that the United States should do more to help eliminate hundreds of aging chemical weapons shells stockpiled in Iraq (see GSN, June 30, 2006). Many of the roughly 500 shells, manufactured during the 1980s, contain degrading remnants of sarin nerve agent or mustard gas, a blistering agent, according to U.S. officials.  Saddam Hussein’s regime was blamed for using chemical weapons in the 1980s, first against Iran and later against thousands of Iraqi Kurdish villagers during the Anfal campaign. The Iraqi parliament and the nation’s three-member presidency council agreed late last year to enable the Persian Gulf nation to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty banning the possession of chemical arms (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2007).  However, Iraq has not yet acceded to the agreement and the shells remain in guarded storage. At an April 2 Senate subcommittee hearing, Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) asked a senior Defense Department official whether it might be possible to use Cooperative Threat Reduction funds “to help Iraq destroy those chemical weapons.” Joseph Benkert, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs, replied that eliminating the munitions under the U.S. threat reduction effort is “a possibility.”  However, he said that pending Iraqi accession to the chemical weapons treaty, no decision has been made on how to proceed. “There’s not a great security threat to the weapons now because of the security upgrades we’ve made on the site, but there is an issue of what Iraq does with them in the long term,” said Benkert, noting the storage facility is “properly monitored” and defended against potential threats by “quick response forces.”  To determine the chemical arsenal’s future disposition, “we are working through this internally as well as, then, with the Iraqis,” he said. Benkert testified before the Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, of which Dole is the ranking minority member. “There’s a very practical issue of whether they can simply just be secured where they are, and will that be adequate, or whether they need to be destroyed,” Benkert explained.  “The destruction of these weapons would not be a trivial task.” He noted that prior to being “sealed up,” the chemical weapons were “in bad shape.” “The weapons are in various states of decay,” Benkert said.  “To get at them and destroy them would probably be an expensive proposition and not easy.  But that may be the way we need to go, and we are examining that now.” The munitions have degraded over the past two decades to such an extent that they are more accurately termed “toxic waste,” rather than potent chemical weapons, according to David Kay, a former U.N. weapons inspector who later led the Iraq Survey Group, the U.S. effort to search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The United States has volunteered to destroy the weapons, but only in accordance with U.S. environmental standards and only at Iraqi expense, Kay told Global Security Newswire in a brief telephone interview this week.  To date, the Iraqi government has been reluctant to foot the bill, he said. “It is a hypersensitive political issue,” Kay said. Benkert called the objective of destroying the entire chemical arsenal “the gold standard.” One less expensive alternative might be to inter the nearly spent munitions in concrete to render them unusable, rather than burning or neutralizing the chemicals, Kay noted.  Given the weapons’ state of decay, such a resolution would be “perfectly adequate,” he said. However, the Chemical Weapons Convention calls for the destruction of such arms. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the panel chair, sounded alarms about the prospect that dangerous chemical agents might remain in place in Iraq. “There is a very bad outcome if we draw down militarily there, [and] leave a country which is [of] questionable stability with thousands and thousands of nerve gas shells,” the lawmaker said.  A spokeswoman for Reed did not respond by press time to a request to substantiate the senator’s assertion that the Iraqi shells number in the thousands, rather than the hundreds reported elsewhere. “The issue … of disposing or dealing with this in the long term is a new issue,” Benkert said at the hearing.  “The Iraqi government doesn’t have the capability to dispose of these things on its own.  This needs to be done, although as long as we’re there and can secure it in place, it isn’t probably at the top of the priority list of things to worry about with the government of Iraq.” Reed appeared dissatisfied.  He questioned how aggressively the Pentagon was pursuing the issue. “Flash forward two months, six months, five years, etc.,” the senator said.  “You’ve got a country that’s of questionable stability, but it has all these weapons, and we missed the opportunity over five, six, seven years to destroy these weapons.” Back to top       Universal Membership Crucial for CWC, Officials Say By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire THE HAGUE — The dozen nations that remain outside the Chemical Weapons Convention threaten its ability to ensure the worldwide elimination of munitions carrying sarin and other lethal agents, the head of the treaty’s verification agency said yesterday (see GSN, April 3). “Universal accession to the convention is crucial to its success,” Rogelio Pfirter, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said in his opening statement to the second review conference of the convention. Other officials echoed Pfirter’s concerns during the first two days of the meeting. “There are several states remaining outside the framework whose adherence would be critical to the success of the convention,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a message to the meeting.  “I urge all governments that have not yet done so to ratify or accede to the convention without delay.” Delegations from many of the 183 member nations to the treaty that bans development, possession or use of chemical weapons are in The Hague for the next two weeks to discuss the operations of the convention and to prepare for developing challenges to its implementation. The OPCW Technical Secretariat and treaty states have spent the five years since the first review conference carrying out an action plan of diplomacy and assistance intended to achieve treaty universality.  In that time membership has grown by nearly 30 nations. Twelve countries remain outside the fold — the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Israel and Myanmar, which have signed but not ratified the convention; and the nonsignatory states of Angola, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Korea, Somalia and Syria. Pfirter yesterday restated his belief that Iraq and Lebanon will soon join the treaty.  The way forward is less clear with other Middle Eastern nations, some of which could be required to declare chemical warfare programs upon becoming a treaty state.  Egypt, Israel and Syria are all believed to possess chemical weapons or weapons capabilities. Pfirter again argued that Arab nations should not delay membership in the Chemical Weapons Convention pending resolution of the security process in the region or the question of Israel’s nuclear weapons program.  Iran, in its statement to the conference today, said that some other nations have refused to join the convention as a response to Israel’s WMD programs, suggesting that Pfirter’s hope for separation of the issue remains unrealized. A similarly tough nut to crack is North Korea, which is believed to be among the top holders of chemical weapons and is a known proliferator of weapons systems.  The Stalinist state has not opened the door to any negotiations on CWC membership, Pfirter said.  It remains important to bring even seemingly harmless nations such as the Dominican Republic into the treaty, said biological and chemical weapons expert Richard Guthrie, one of several observers providing daily online reports on the conference. Diplomatic pressure on states of most concern is less effective if the status of other nations remains in question, he said.  The national regulations required of treaty members would also help ensure that a country such as the Bahamas — alleged to be a transit point for drug smuggling — is not used for the illicit transfers of chemical weapons materials. “The people who have experience moving drugs around the world might well be the people who would move toxic substances around,” he said. Treaty states must develop “tailor-made strategies” to bring the remaining dozen states into the convention, said Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen in his statement to the conference. While experts have said they do not believe the review conference will produce major changes to the universality effort, Pfirter said participants could send a message to the nontreaty states. “I am confident that the review conference will issue a strong appeal to all of them to [join] at the earliest opportunity and that it will provide appropriate guidance to states parties, policy-making organs and the Technical Secretariat,” he said. Speakers yesterday and early today were generally aligned on the issues facing the convention, including advances in science and technology that could pose threats to the nonproliferation regime; ensuring that all nations meet their obligations under the treaty, including enacting comprehensive legislation turning the CWC rules into law; and ensuring the prevention of chemical terrorism. There was not, however, full agreement on all matters. Pfirter and other speakers said there is a need for increased inspections of “other chemical production facilities,” the thousands of industry plants that produce materials not listed under three chemical categories in the treaty.  Experts have warned that up to 15 percent of those sites could be quickly converted to produce banned substances. Many of these facilities are now being built in developing nations, which worry about an increased inspections burden.  The nonaligned movement nations and China yesterday called for an industry verification regime that corresponds “to the hierarchy of risks inherent to the respective category of chemicals,” which would seemingly keep the emphasis on the scheduled chemicals. “Any shift in the distribution of inspections which is contrary to this hierarchy would signal a departure from the fundamental principles of the verification regime based on the convention,” according to the NAM statement. Another point of disagreement appears to be the never-used provision of the treaty that allows member states to call for an OPCW inspection of a facility in another state party that is suspected of weapons development.  The European Union, in its statement to the conference yesterday, called challenge inspections “a cornerstone for deterring noncompliance with the convention and increasing transparency, confidence and international security.”  The NAM states and China argued, however, said such inspections should be used only as a “last resort” and must not be abused. General debate was scheduled to continue today and tomorrow, followed by closed sessions through the rest of the conference for preparation of a final document. Back to top       Nations Demand Adherence to CW Disposal Deadlines By Chris Schneidmiller Global Security Newswire THE HAGUE — While rarely identifying Russia and the United States by name, members of the Chemical Weapons Convention made it clear this week they expect the two countries to finish destroying their chemical arsenals as required by the treaty in the next four years (see GSN, Dec. 11, 2006). The matter of weapons destruction deadlines came up in every statement by delegates gathered here for two weeks to discuss the operations and challenges to the treaty. “We firmly believe that it is imperative for the major possessor states parties to strictly comply with the final deadline for the destruction of their chemical weapons, to uphold the credibility and integrity of the convention,” Cuban diplomat Jose Diaz Duque, speaking on behalf of the nonaligned states and China, said yesterday during the first day of the treaty’s second review conference. Nearly 40 percent of known chemical weapons worldwide have been eliminated, accompanied by the conversion or destruction of 65 production facilities.  Albania last year became the first nation to fully destroy its stockpile, a small arsenal of 16 tons of mustard agent. However, the remaining declared owners of chemical arsenals — India, Libya, Russia, the United States and an unidentified nation widely assumed to be South Korea — were unable to meet the treaty’s original destruction deadline of April 2007 and received extensions of up to five years. Doubts persist regarding Washington and Moscow's abilities to eliminate their respective, world’s-largest stockpiles of roughly 28,000 and 40,000 metric tons of chemical warfare agents by April 29, 2012. The United States has destroyed more than half of its stockpile, despite technical, legal and environmental challenges and significant fluctuations in funding for some disposal projects (see GSN, June 21, 2007).  After a late start, Russia has destroyed about one-fourth of its weapons. “The large size of the remaining stockpiles makes it very difficult to say with any certainty that they will be able to complete destruction in the ever shorter time available to them under the terms of the convention.  Yet both countries remain fully committed to the convention,” said Rogelio Pfirter, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the treaty’s verification body. “The two countries concerned … need to assure the timely commission of all necessary destruction sites and the timely allocation of necessary resources,” he added in his opening statement to the conference. U.S. Ambassador Eric Javits today acknowledged concerns about the rate of weapons destruction while avoiding specific mention of estimates that work in the United States might continue through 2023.  “The commitment of the United States to disarmament is clear, and the resources we have devoted to this complex, difficult task are enormous,” he told the conference. Russian delegate Victor Kholstov reaffirmed his government’s stand that it will meet the deadline.  Work has been completed at the disposal site at Gorny, he said, while operations are under way at two sites and two more are expected to open this year, he said. “The president of the Russian Federation considers the fulfillment of our obligations under the convention to be one of our highest international priorities,” he said.  “Russia rules out the possibility of not complying with the conventional deadlines for the destruction of its CW stockpile.” Delegates’ statements largely emphasized the importance of the destruction schedules rather than the ramifications of schedule violations.  This appeared to be in line with Pfirter’s argument that it was too early to discuss responses to missed deadlines. Iran proved the exception, though it did not specifically call out its longtime foe the United States. “Failure to meet this deadline is a clear and serious case of noncompliance with the basic obligations of the states parties,” according to Iran’s statement.  “It would also raise the concern that domestic policies might have resulted in [retention of] security reserves.” China and Japan Chinese delegate Cheng Jingye today expressed concern about the lack of progress in the recovery and destruction of hundreds of thousands of chemical weapons abandoned by the Japanese military at the end of World War II.  The deadline for that project is also April 2012. There has been moderate progress in excavating the weapons and in preparing for destruction, Cheng said. “However … not one piece of Japanese [abandoned chemical weapons] has been destroyed so far,” he said.  “China urges Japan to faithfully fulfill its obligations under the convention to increase its input, so as to bring about an early start and timely completion of the destruction process.” Japanese Ambassador Minoru Shibuya said his government plans to accept bids for production of mobile facilities that would be used to destroy 44,000 abandoned weapons recovered to date around China.  Talks are also under way regarding groundbreaking for the weapons destruction facility to be deployed at Haerbaling, where most of the Japanese weapons remain buried (see GSN, April 9, 2007). Back to top

U.S.-Russian Missile Defense Tension Eases Saturday’s U.S.-Russian summit helped to ease Russian concerns about U.S. missile defense plans, but Moscow still opposes Washington’s plans to deploy a radar and missile interceptors in Central Europe, Interfax reported yesterday (see GSN, April 7). Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin discussed a U.S. proposal to give Russia some monitoring capability over the missile defenses, and Russian officials expressed pleasure that Bush was treating their concerns seriously. “We did not want the situation to worsen, to somehow affect our military realities and to require some steps in response,” said one Kremlin source.  “It looks like we have avoided some retaliatory steps.  We have managed to cut this negative chain.” Still, “the best guarantee that the … missile defense system is not targeted against us would be its absence,” said Putin aide Sergei Prikhodko (Interfax I, April 7). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed optimism for an acceptable solution. “The American side has acknowledged that our concerns are legitimate, and said it was ready to work to allay them,” he said in an interview published today.  “We were offered transparency and trust-building measures.  Given that the U.S. is firmly determined to create a missile defense system in Europe in any case, there is sense in making use of these proposals. “The most important thing for us is that our representatives be permanently present at these sites and monitor, second-by-second, that the radar is not eyeing our territory and that interceptor missiles are not a threat for us,” Lavrov added (Interfax II, April 8). For his part, Putin expressed hope that the Bush proposals could lead to historic gains in the future. “George mentioned that he wants to work together on these systems.  This is what I consider extremely important.  If we manage to start cooperating on global missile defense, initially at the level of experts, and then at a political level, the way we do in negotiating theater missile defense in Europe, this would be the main and the most important achievement of all our previous work,” he said (Interfax III, April 8). While Russia might aspire to have permanent observers at the planned radar site in the Czech Republic and the interceptor site in Poland, a senior Polish official today expressed Warsaw’s opposition to the idea. The concept would create “a Russian mini-base,” and Poland “would return to times when Russians [were] stationed in Poland and our country would be transformed into a Russian-American protectorate,” said Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski in a newspaper commentary. He is scheduled to meet in Moscow today with his Russian counterpart Sergei Kislyak to discuss the U.S. plans (Poland Business Newswire, April 8). Poland has requested more conditions from Washington than have Czech officials, who recently reached an agreement on the radar installation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to sign that deal next month. She “would like to travel to Prague to sign the ballistic missile defense agreement,” U.S. embassy spokeswoman in Prague said yesterday.  “We hope it will be some time in early May” (Karel Janicek, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, April 7). Back to top       Belarus to Advise Venezuela on Missile Defense Belarus plans to dispatch military advisers to Venezuela who would provide the country with technical assistance in deploying missile defenses, Interfax reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 21). “The announced aid to Venezuela in forming the national missile defense system will be exclusively intellectual,” Belarusian air force and anti-aircraft force commander Igor Azaryonok said Friday. Previous media reports quoted Pyotr Tikhonovsky as saying that Belarus would deploy air-defense and electronic warfare systems in Venezuela over six years.  The former Soviet state would initially send 10 advisers to Venezuela in 2008, followed by additional technical experts, the Belarusian deputy chief of the general staff said (Interfax, April 7). Back to top       Russian Air Force to Command S-400 Battalion The Russian air force is expected to assume short-term control of the country’s second batch S-400 Triumph air-defense interceptors, Interfax reported today (see GSN, Feb. 8). “We shall get another S-400 Triumph air defense missile battalion shortly,” said Col. Gen. Yuri Solovyov, head of the Russian air force’s Special Purpose Command, adding that the system would be test-fired in August. Solovyov also referred to Russia’s intention to develop “a completely new range of assault means” by 2015.  The future system would include “hypersonic objects, space weapons [and] other weaponry,” he said (Interfax, April 8). Back to top

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