MOSCOW (AP) -- Viktor Kholstov, head of the Munitions Agency and the official responsible for reducing weapons stockpiles, accused the United States of inventing irrelevant political conditions for funding Russia's chemical weapons disposal program.

Kholstov said that while the United States had pledged more than $500 million to help eliminate the world's biggest chemical stockpile, its financial aid was "dependent upon completely far-fetched political conditions," Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported Thursday.

Kholtsov said that the United States suspected that Russia was selling chemical weapons to so-called "problem countries," making reference to Iraq.

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