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RUSSIAN DEFENCE ENTERPRISES DENY WEAPONS SUPPLIES TO "TERRORIST STATES"

ATHENS, OCTOBER 2ND, 2002 /FROM RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT OLGA SEMYONOVA/ -- The leaders of Russia's three defence enterprises have bluntly denied US accusations of supplying weapons to "terrorist states".

According to a RIA Novosti correspondent, representatives of the enterprises' (Priborostroyenie, Rosvertol and Bazalt) top management stated this at a press conference in Rosoboronexport on the sidelines of the 12th international exposition of arms and hardware "Defendory International-2002" currently being held on the outskirts of the Greek capital.

Journalists asked Leonid Roshal, deputy director general of the Priborostroyenie designing bureau, about the reaction of these enterprises and Rosoboronexport to the US Department of State's statement about imposing sanctions on these Russian defence enterprises, which allegedly supply offensive weapons to "terrorist countries". Leonid Roshal answered, "These sanctions have no legal basis because they are predicated on the internal legislation of the United States which has already made up a list of countries it suspects of terror activities." According to Roshal, in their foreign trade Russian enterprises above all proceed from the Russian legislation and the UN resolutions. "Russian defence enterprises have not violated any UN resolutions," he remarked. "Moreover, the system of selling Russian weapons is designed in such a way that no banned goods can be sold, even if we wanted to." Roshal said that "all export deliveries are supervised by the committee for military-technical co-operation with foreign states, though with no consideration for the US Department of State's viewpoint." A spokesman for the Rosvertol helicopter building company, in turn, noted that the Rostov-on-Don enterprise number 168 mentioned by the Americans had been closed over 50 years ago, and Rosvertol was not its successor. "Besides, we carry out all the supplies via Rosoboronexport," he said.

A spokesman for the Bazalt enterprise remarked that his company sold really highly-efficient arms, having no analogues abroad. He emphasised that the US Department of State's statement included a report having no relation to reality: we too carry out all of the supplies through Rosoboronexport, but none of them are delivered to "terrorist countries". Besides, the Bazalt spokesman voiced a reasonable assumption that at issue might be widespread "imitated" products under the trademark of Russian enterprises.

The spokesmen of all the three above-mentioned enterprises suggested that the Americans be more accurate in their reports instead of voicing non-grounded accusations.

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