The Associated Press
Saturday, September 1, 2007

TIRANA, Albania: Albania's experience in being the first nation to destroy its entire chemical weapons stockpile can offer other world nations an example to follow in removing weapons of mass destruction, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar said Saturday.

In July, Albania finished destroying about 16 metric tons (18 U.S. tons) of blistering chemical agents at a cost of US$50 million (€36.6 million), funded by a U.S. program for dismantling Cold War-era weapons of mass destruction.

Switzerland, Italy and Greece also helped in Albania's destruction of the chemicals, which were secretly brought into the former communist country during the Cold War. Albania's communist regime collapsed in 1990, but the weapons were never publicly declared until five years ago.

The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has a reservoir of experience and talent that could help other countries meet nonproliferation objectives around the world, Lugar said at a conference in Tirana titled "Successful termination of Nunn-Lugar Project. Albania: First country with no chemical weapons."

"The work in Albania demonstrates that we can and must be prepared with money and expertise to extend the Nunn-Lugar concept wherever it can be usefully applied," Lugar said, adding that "Albania's secret stockpile may not be the last."

"We can and must be prepared to address similar risks in the Middle East, Asia, and anyplace else where supplies of weapons of mass destruction may be located," he said, adding Washington must also stand ready to move quickly into situations such as North Korea.

"If a final agreement can be reached, the Nunn-Lugar program could play a central role in neutralizing the grave threat posed by the nuclear weapons and materials that Pyongyang has accumulated."

The Nunn-Lugar program is credited with deactivating or destroying 6,982 nuclear warheads, 653 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles, 613 submarine-launched missiles, 30 nuclear submarines and other parts of the Soviet Union's nuclear program.