The leader of the Yabloko party and its faction in the State Duma Grigory Yavlinsky and the President of the Russian Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute" agreed on cooperation in working the concept of economic development and ensuring safety in the nuclear energy sector in Russia - one of the areas of activity of the institute.

This happened during the meeting of the leaders of Yabloko with the heads of the research centre that took place in the Kurchatov Institute on Wednesday, October 24, 2001. In addition to Yavlinsky and Acad. Evgeni Velikhov deputy of the State Duma and member of the Yabloko faction Sergei Mitrokhin, director of Kurchatov Institute Ilya Polyakov, Research Director of the Institute and Director of the Institute of Safety Problems Vladimir Asmolov, as well as other heads and leading experts of the centre took part in the meeting.

This is not the first time that Yabloko and Kurchatov Institute cooperate. Annually beginning in 1996, Yabloko has been trying to provide complete financing of the research centre from the allocation of certain funds in the state budget for safety, research and capital construction of the Institute.

During the meeting telling about the work in the Institute Velikhov
provided a detail explanation to Yabloko representatives on use of these funds.

The problem of imports of spent nuclear fuel into Russia was also discussed at the meeting. Yavlinsky confirmed Yabloko's stance in this issue: implementation of this project is extremely dangerous in the present circumstances in our country. Yavlinsky and Mitrokhin handed to the academics the draft of Yabloko's amendments to the package of laws on the imports of spent nuclear fuel into Russia aimed at ensuring the transparency of all the financial flows connected with the future deals on nuclear waste and creation of guarantees of repatriation of the nuclear waste after its recycling.

In addition Yabloko's representatives also told academics that at present the faction was working to resolve the problem of the country's nuclear safety and would try to persuade the Duma to allot 2 bln roubles for this at the third reading of the budget.

See also:

Nuclear Waste Bill