#9
BBC Monitoring
Russian environmentalist against MP's proposal to resume nuclear tests
Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1050 gmt 23 Mar 02

[No dateline as received] President of the Russian centre for environmental policy [academician] Aleksey Yablokov sees no logic in a suggestion that Russia should resume nuclear tests, recently made by [former deputy defence minister, now leading member of pro-government Fatherland-All Russia faction in the State Duma] Andrey Kokoshin.

"We would again join the arms race. I see neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor strategic logic in it. What I see is a boyish desire to score off someone," Yablokov said in a live interview with Ekho Moskvy radio.

Kokoshin, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Industry, Construction and High Technology, said that Russia might resume nuclear tests speaking at the ongoing 10th assembly of the Russian Council on External and Defence Policy. He said that new nuclear tests on the Novaya Zemlya testing range would be quite possible if the United States continues to work on its nuclear programme.

"Of course, America's decision to prepare for more nuclear tests prompts our military to do the same. It would be silly, because we and Americans have different problems," Yablokov said.

He said that Russia has enough weapons to provide for strategic deterrence.