Kazakhstan, OSCE mull project to scrap arms, ammo surplus
By Oleg Antonov
ITAR-TASS News Agency
June 2, 2005 Thursday 7:43 AM Eastern Time
ALMATY, June 2 — Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defence and the Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mull a joint project
to eliminate the surpluses of small arms and obsolete ammunition kept
at the republic’s military depots.
Vladimir Nosonovsky, chief of the Kazakh Armed Forces’ main directorate
for arsenals, bases, depots of ammunition and armaments, told Itar-Tass
on Thursday that arms surpluses amount to 30,000 weapons and about
2,5 million rounds of ammunition.
Nosonovsky said the arms had been at one time taken out by the Soviet
Army from Afghanistan, East Germany, and Armenia. They are out of
use by Kazakhstan’s Army or are damaged and are hazardous if further
stored. These are, in particular, tank projectiles of 100-mm caliber
as well as ammunition with a storage term of 40 years, Nosonovsky
said. “Other ammunition will not be eliminated,” he emphasised.
The Kazakh Defence Ministry has already eliminated 160,000 rounds of
ammunition but “the republic lacks capacities for this kind of work,”
Nosonovsky pointed out.
“The scope of assistance in this respect will be determined after
experts of the OSCE Conflicts Prevention Centre inspect the main
small arms storages in Kazakhstan,” Nosonovsky said. The experts are
expected to arrive in Kazakhstan on June 6.