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RIA Novosti, March 14, 2003

Lack of international aid hampers destruction of Russia's weapons-grade plutonium

Moscow, March 14, 2003 (RIA Novosti correspondent Eduard Puziryiv). Instead of the required USD2 billion required to build a plant to destroy weapons-grade plutonium in Russia, the international community has gathered only USD800 million, a RIA Novosti correspondent quoted minister Alexander Rumyantsev, the Ministry for Nuclear Power, as reporting on Friday.

Only Japan, the United States, Italy and France have allocated money for the project, he said.

Rumyantsev recalled that, under the 2000 Russian-American intergovernmental agreement, the two countries pledged "to destroy mutually this component of thermonuclear weapons". "Under this agreement, each country has to destroy 34 tonnes of plutonium", he said. Consequently steps were taken to build such a plant in the Urals region or Siberia.

"As soon as the international community becomes interested in reducing the world's nuclear potential and manages to accumulate USD2 billion, we will get proceed with construction of the plant," stressed the Russian minister for nuclear energy.

 

See also:

YABLOKO Against Nuclear Waste imports into Russia

RIA Novosti, March 14, 2003

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