Russia Sorry for Delaying U.S. Senators
Monday August 29, 2005 7:46 PM
AP Photo KIV102
By MARA D. BELLABY
Associated Press Writer
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Russia apologized Monday for keeping two U.S. senators waiting for three hours in a Russian airport after border guards expressed concerns about letting the U.S. military flight depart without an inspection of the plane.
Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., arrived in the Ukrainian capital later than expected after the delay in Russia's Ural Mountains city of Perm on Sunday night.
``We are not certain as to why or (what was) the particular activity that caused that delay,'' Lugar said. ``We are pleased that our flight was able to continue to Kiev, albeit three hours later. ... We still had a good night's sleep.''
Both the Russians and Americans moved to draw a line under the incident, which officials said was unlikely to provoke a serious uproar in relations.
The senators and their aides had spent three days in Russia visiting sites where warheads are stored before destruction under the U.S.-funded Comprehensive Threat Reduction program. The program provides millions of dollars a year to help Russia destroy weapons of mass destruction.
In Ukraine, the senators announced a new bilateral agreement aimed at countering bioterrorism. The United States will help Ukraine upgrade the security of pathogens stored at laboratories, make it easier for the government to evaluate disease outbreaks, and fund regional monitoring stations.
``When it comes to issues of security against terrorist threats as well as against infectious diseases, these threats know no borders,'' Obama said.
Similar agreements are in place with other ex-Soviet republics, but bureaucratic hurdles had held up the signing with Ukraine. Lugar said questions of funding would now be decided.
Ukraine still maintains numerous Soviet-era laboratories, such as the Kiev Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, which the senators visited Monday. The facility has pathogens causing diseases such as anthrax, cholera and typhoid, and its employees often earned only $100 a month, raising concerns about security. The laboratory will benefit under the program.
The apology for the senators' delayed flight came from the Russian Foreign Ministry after they had visited sites where weapons of mass destruction are stored.
``We regret the misunderstanding that arose and caused an inconvenience to the senators,'' the ministry said in a statement.
It said the delay, which ``was incorrectly called a detention,'' arose because of questions over whether the international flight en route to Kiev had undergone the necessary procedures.
The guards had demanded to be allowed to inspect the U.S. plane, but were refused by the Americans, U.S. officials said. After the military flight's diplomatic status was verified, the senators were allowed to leave.
``Russia and American special government flights, on a basic principle of reciprocality, enjoy a number of diplomatic privileges, including simplified border and customs control,'' the Foreign Ministry said.
Earlier Monday, Lugar told journalists in Kiev that he had received no explanation for the Russian government's actions but was pleased his flight was allowed eventually to take off for neighboring Ukraine.
Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, defended the delay, saying it was because the Perm airport isn't part of an Open Skies Agreement, which allows certain planes to bypass inspections, Russia's RIA Novosti and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported.
The FSB, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said it could comment only within a week's time.
Alexander Golts, a defense analyst with the online magazine Yezhednevny Zhurnal, suggested that the delay could have been a rebuke for Lugar's criticism of Russia for backsliding on democracy or an effort to bury the Threat Reduction Program.
``If this is our strange way of ending or discrediting a program that is crucial to us, it is really silly,'' Golts told Ekho Moskvy radio.
But Mikhail Margelov, head of the Russian upper house of parliament's foreign relations committee, said he didn't expect a major fallout between the two nations, and the Foreign Ministry praised Lugar's ``personal contribution'' to destroying nuclear weapons material.
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