International experts explore the activities of Lugar Center
The experts have started working yesterday and will release a report after they finish studying the situation at the center.
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International experts from 17 countries are exploring how the US-built, Tbilisi-based Lugar Center works amid Russian allegations and reports about supposed illegal experiments conducted at the center.
The experts started working yesterday and will release a report after they finish investigating the situation at the center.
Commander of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops of Russia Igor Kirilov said at a special briefing last month that illegal experiments have been performed on humans in the lab and led to the death of more than 73 people in 2015 and 2016.
However, Head of the National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) of Georgia Amiran Gamkrelidze said that the allegations were “unimaginable falsehoods and slander.”
At the UN Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) experts meeting in August, Georgia expressed its readiness to host international experts at Lugar Center.
23 delegates are conducting the two-day Peer Review Exercise under the BWC of the UN, which was been signed into place by Georgia on May 22, 1996. Experts from the EU and UN are among the delegates.
As a signatory of the convention, Georgia is obliged to annually prepare the Confidence-Building Measures report which includes all the information regarding the biological capabilities and activities of the country.
Head of the National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) of Georgia Amiran Gamkrelidze says that recent allegations of the Russian media and state officials regarding illegal experiments at the Tbilisi-based, US-built Lugar Laboratory are “unimaginable falsehoods and slander.”
The US Embassy in Georgia has responded to Russian allegations and reports about supposed illegal experiments conducted at the US-built, Tbilisi-based Lugar Center and stated that those accusations are “nonsense and typical of Russian misinformation and propaganda campaigns.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he has heard information about genetic research being conducted at the US-built, Tbilisi-based Lugar Centre and added that if the information is valid the news is “alarming.”
Georgia plays an important role in disease detection and the recent establishment of a state of the art biolab in Georgia will only aid this, said Georgia’s Prime Minister while visiting the Richard Lugar National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health today.
Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze has sent his condolences over the death of former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar.
Georgian and Chinese officials have hailed the activities of the US-founded Lugar lab in Tbilisi, which has again become the subject of Russian attacks during the coronavirus pandemic.