Moscow, Friday

RUSSIA'S parliament resisted international pressure to ratify a treaty banning chemical weapons today, saying it needed more time and Western cash to destroy its deadly stockpile.

Yesterday the United States Senate approved the pact, which has been signed by 164 countries and is due to come into effect next Tuesday.

The European Union urged Russia, which has huge stockpiles of chemical weapons, to follow the US lead. Britain and France also issued individual appeals.

The State Duma lower house of parliament discussed the treaty today, but instead of approving it deputies decided to send a statement to the other participating countries saying they would aim to ratify it in a few months' time.

The deputies also backed a draft law laying down how, but not when, Russia would destroy the weapons.

''The State Duma . . . has begun the process of ratifying the convention and intends to complete it, if possible this autumn, if the necessary conditions are met,'' said the statement, passed by 331 votes with none against. One deputy abstained.

''It's simple, there's a lack of cash,'' said Vladimir Lukin, head of the Duma's foreign affairs committee, who also accused President Boris Yeltsin of holding up the treaty.

''We have one of the biggest amounts of chemical weapons so we have to have understanding (from the West),'' he said.

The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which took years to negotiate, aims to ban the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons worldwide.

The treaty obliges members to eliminate all chemical weapons and production facilities by 2007. China and Iran have signed but not ratified. Non-signatories include Iraq and Libya.

Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, head of the state committee for the environment, has said Russia has 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons to destroy.

Lev Fyodorov, president of the Russian Union for Chemical Security, said today it would cost at least five billion dollars to destroy the weapons, Interfax news agency reported.-Reuter.