MOSCOW - The State Duma has unanimously approved by 371 votes a statement on the ecological aftermath of NATO actions in former Yugoslavia.

The statement was initiated by the Duma International Committee to voice concern about uses of depleted uranium munitions in 1999 and to call on the parliaments of the world to investigate the situation together.

The lawmakers supported an amendment of Nikolai Ryzhkov, an independent deputy and chairman of the Duma commission for assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in order to recover from the NATO bombing campaign. The amendment calls on the UN Security Council, the OSCE, other international organizations and Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Carla del Ponte to pay close attention to the problem.

Deputy head of the Duma Defense Committee Alexei Arbatov (Yabloko) said that the Tribunal displayed a one-sided attitude in the search for war criminals in the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia. He proposed to instruct the Duma International Committee to draft a related resolution or a statement of the State Duma, and the proposal was accepted.
 /RosBusinessConsulting/