Post by Bozur on Feb 17, 2005 17:55:35 GMT -5
Albania got chemicals from USSR and China
But had no nuclear or biological weapons, report says
By Llazar Semini - The Associated Press
TIRANA - The Soviet Union and China supplied Albania with chemical agents during the Cold War, a newspaper reported yesterday.
A former army officer of the Defense Ministry, identified as H.N. by the Albanian newspaper Gazeta Shqiptare, said the country was supplied with mustard gas, lewisite and adamsite by Moscow until 1960, when Tirana broke diplomatic ties, and then by China.
“They came from China with ships transporting wheat because their production, transport, sale and preservation were prohibited by international laws,” the officer was quoted as saying.
Albania had also started a secret program of producing chemical agents to be used for bombs and artillery shells ordered by the late Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, he said.
Albania had no nuclear or biological weapons “because our government considered everything only for the defense,” according to the officer.
The Defense Ministry could not confirm the report, saying the origin of the chemical agents was still not clear.
“We do not know where they came from,” Deputy Defense Minister Besnik Bare said at a news conference. “There exists no documentation on them.”
Albania has asked for US help in destroying its stockpiles of chemical weapons left over from the communist era. In October, the United States gave Albania US$18.3 million (14 million euros) to destroy some 16 tons of chemical agents, most of which were raw materials that could be used to create chemical weapons.
Army officials say they’ve taken security measures to keep the chemical agents stored safely and make sure that they are not stolen.
Washington will provide the technology — a specially built incinerator — needed to destroy the chemicals until 2007.
Albania hopes to eventually join NATO, an ambition Washington says it supports.
The small, predominantly Muslim country was one of the most vocal backers of the US-led campaign in Iraq, where it has deployed a small unit of 71 non-combat troops to help with postwar peacekeeping.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=51685
But had no nuclear or biological weapons, report says
By Llazar Semini - The Associated Press
TIRANA - The Soviet Union and China supplied Albania with chemical agents during the Cold War, a newspaper reported yesterday.
A former army officer of the Defense Ministry, identified as H.N. by the Albanian newspaper Gazeta Shqiptare, said the country was supplied with mustard gas, lewisite and adamsite by Moscow until 1960, when Tirana broke diplomatic ties, and then by China.
“They came from China with ships transporting wheat because their production, transport, sale and preservation were prohibited by international laws,” the officer was quoted as saying.
Albania had also started a secret program of producing chemical agents to be used for bombs and artillery shells ordered by the late Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, he said.
Albania had no nuclear or biological weapons “because our government considered everything only for the defense,” according to the officer.
The Defense Ministry could not confirm the report, saying the origin of the chemical agents was still not clear.
“We do not know where they came from,” Deputy Defense Minister Besnik Bare said at a news conference. “There exists no documentation on them.”
Albania has asked for US help in destroying its stockpiles of chemical weapons left over from the communist era. In October, the United States gave Albania US$18.3 million (14 million euros) to destroy some 16 tons of chemical agents, most of which were raw materials that could be used to create chemical weapons.
Army officials say they’ve taken security measures to keep the chemical agents stored safely and make sure that they are not stolen.
Washington will provide the technology — a specially built incinerator — needed to destroy the chemicals until 2007.
Albania hopes to eventually join NATO, an ambition Washington says it supports.
The small, predominantly Muslim country was one of the most vocal backers of the US-led campaign in Iraq, where it has deployed a small unit of 71 non-combat troops to help with postwar peacekeeping.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=51685