To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he next expects to meet Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, Defence Minister of the Commonwealth of Independent States to discuss confidence-building measures.

I met Marshal Shaposhnikov on 30 January when he accompanied President Yeltsin on a visit to London. We discussed a wide range of subjects of mutual interest, including ways in which the United Kingdom might provide assistance in the fields of nuclear weapons disposal and defence management.