| 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
|
