The signing came today as Lugar and U.S. Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) visited the Kyiv Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, one of the facilities that will be covered under the agreement.

The Station maintains a pathogen collection and conducts work on many highly dangerous infections reported in Ukraine. These include pathogens causing diseases such as: Anthrax, Tularemia, Brucellosis, Listeriosis, Diphtheria, Cholera, Typhoid, and others.

Previously, scientists at the Station had been paid just $100 per month. This year, 10 employees of the Center began participating in the first Science and Technology Center-Ukraine, affiliated with the Nunn-Lugar program. The Science and Technology Center-Ukraine employs scientists in peaceful work. Several other projects are being discussed.

“The Nunn-Lugar program looks forward to assisting the Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Station in strengthening biosafety and biosecurity, enhancing its molecular diagnostic capability and expanding research cooperation with the United Stated under this new agreement,” Lugar said.

At the Anti-Plague Institute in Odessa, Ukraine, the Nunn-Lugar program will expand the study and capacity to diagnose the spread of avian flu in migratory birds, a major influenza concern around the world.

“When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans -- an avian flu pandemic. An outbreak could cause millions of deaths, destabilize Southeast Asia (its likely place of origin), and threaten the security of governments around the world,” Lugar and Obama wrote in a June 6 op-ed in The New York Times.

In response to this threat, Lugar and Obama wrote, “…the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved legislation directing President Bush to form a senior-level task force to put in place an international strategy to deal with the avian flu and coordinate policy among our government agencies. We urge the Bush administration to form this task force immediately without waiting for legislation to be passed.”

Earlier in the trip, Lugar and Obama visited the Russian Research Institute of Phytopathology at Golitsino, a former biological weapons facility.

The Nunn-Lugar program, through the International Science and Technology Center, has employed 58,000 scientists that were previously involved in weapons of mass destruction programs in the former Soviet Union.

In 1991, Senator Lugar (R-IN) and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. This program has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems. In 1997, Lugar and Nunn were joined by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) in introducing the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, which expanded Nunn-Lugar authorities in the former Soviet Union and provided WMD expertise to first responders in American cities. In 2003, Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, which authorized the Nunn-Lugar program to operate outside the former Soviet Union to address proliferation threats. In October 2004, Nunn-Lugar funds were used for the first time outside of the former Soviet Union to secure chemical weapons in Albania, under a Lugar-led expansion of the program.

The latest Nunn-Lugar Scorecard shows that the program has deactivated or destroyed: 6,760 nuclear warheads; 587 ICBMs; 483 ICBM silos; 32 ICBM mobile missile launchers; 150 bombers; 789 nuclear air-to-surface missiles; 436 submarine missile launchers; 549 submarine launched missiles; 28 nuclear submarines; and 194 nuclear test tunnels.

Beyond the scorecard’s nuclear elimination, the Nunn-Lugar program secures and destroys chemical weapons, and works to reemploy scientists and facilities related to biological weapons in peaceful research initiatives. The International Proliferation Prevention Program has funded 750 projects involving 14,000 former weapons scientists and created some 580 new peaceful high-tech jobs. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. They otherwise would be the world’s the third, forth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers, respectively.

For more information on the Nunn-Lugar Program, visit http://lugar.senate.gov/nunnlugar.html.