Global Security Newswire

Canada is ending its participation in two programs intended to provide peaceful civilian opportunities for ex-Soviet scientists with expertise in weapons of mass destruction, the Canadian Press reported on Tuesday.

Ottawa has provided about $60 million for the International Science and Technology Center in Moscow and a sister operation, the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine.

"This is an organization which was established as the Cold War was ending to finance support in the former Soviet Union so that senior nuclear experts didn’t go and work in other parts of the world," according to Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. "Given we're some 25 years out from that, the program has largely been successful. Most of the people have retired."

A former high-level envoy, though, noted that the Group of Eight nations highlighted the importance of engaging arms scientists in 2011 when they extended by a decade the operational life of their Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.

"It is a little curious, if that was all restated so recently, that there's been a decision that this work is now complete and not requiring any further support," said ex-Canadian disarmament ambassador Paul Meyer. "You would have thought if there was to be a determination of that nature, that it would be done more collectively by the G-8 and other states that have cooperated with the global partnership endeavor."

Canada is a G-8 state. It pledged in 2012 to provide $365 million over five years for Global Partnership programs for "building on past initiatives to enhance global weapons of mass destruction security."

Russia has indicated it does not plan to participate in the Moscow center after 2015, while Ukraine appears hopeful of keeping its program active despite reduced funding.