The letter from the Deputy Minister represents the Ministry's official response to Mitrokhin's address to the Ministry to allot money to move people away from nuclear-contaminated areas in Chelyabinsk region. "We suggest that the money earned by recycling and storage of nuclear waste imported from Bulgaria and Hungary should be spent on rehabilitating programmes, - said Mitrokhin. - The proposal is part of the concept developed by YABLOKO, which envisages that the profits from the Ministry's commercial activity should be primarily allocated to the financing of rehabilitation programmes."

Mitrokhin also said that now the administration of the Chelyabinsk region should provide a draft programme to rehabilitate the contaminated territories and evacuation of their residents.

Mitrokhin also said that Chairman of the YABLOKO party Grigory Yavlinsky forwarded a letter, in his turn, to the Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Pyotr Sumin, offering assistance in the development of the corresponding programme. On the same day Mitrokhin and representatives from the federal ministries will visit Karabash, where a meeting devoted to environmental problems will take place.

On November 10, 2003, Griogry Yavlinsky

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