01.02.2007 // Polit.ru

Russian President supports the formation of a network of international uranium enrichment centers for providing equal and democratic access to all countries wishing to develop their nuclear power industries

During his big press-conference today, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about the report of the co-chairs of high-level inter-department working group Samuel Bodman and Sergey Kiriyenko to their presidents about Russian-US nuclear security cooperation.

The journalist asked: “What do you think about the results of this cooperation? What important measures are the sides planning for the near future?”

Putin said that one of the key concerns of the sides is nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. “We are in a quite difficult situation: many countries want, seek and are planning to develop nuclear power engineering.”

“There is a very fine line between development of nuclear power engineering and nonproliferation because it is very hard to say at what point uranium is enriched into military fuel. That’s why we have appeared with almost the same initiative. It is formulated a bit differently, but the meaning is the same: this is the formation of a system, a network of international uranium enrichment centers providing equal and democratic access to all countries wishing to develop their nuclear power industries. These centers will also engage in nuclear waste disposal. This means that we are moving in this direction not only with the United States,” Putin said.

“As you may know, we have relevant agreements with Kazakhstan. The Kazakh President has welcomed our initiative, we are setting up a relevant JV and invite all concerned parties to take part in the project.”

In early 2006 the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States appeared with individual initiatives for developing the world nuclear power engineering for ensuring safe sustainable development in the world with simultaneous nonproliferation guarantees.

Considering the similarity of final goals and approaches in their initiatives, the Russian and US presidents decided to formulate a joint attitude towards the peaceful use of nuclear power and expressed commitment for long-term cooperation towards nuclear power sector development. During the G8 meeting in St. Petersburg July 15 2006 the Russian and US presidents instructed their governments to set up a Russian-US task force for drafting bilateral plan of action for implementing cooperation in the nuclear power sector.

Note:
 
Russian-Kazakh JV, set up under Oct 12 2006 agreement, is supposed to enrich Kazakh uranium on a special site at Angarsk Electrolytic Chemical Combine (Irkutsk region). In fact, this is the first Russian-Kazakh JV acting under the project for establishing international uranium enrichment center – project proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
 
Such centers are a guarantee for countries wishing to develop their nuclear industries to get fuel for their NPPs without establishing own nuclear enterprises using double-purpose technologies.

The project was approved by IAEA Secretary General Mohammed ElBaradei during the IAEA 50th general conference in Vienna.

Presently, Russia and Kazakhstan are implementing a joint project at Zarechnoye deposit. 49.33% of the JV belongs of Tekhstabexport (Russia), 49.33% to Kazatomprom (Kazakhstan), 0.67% to Atompredmetzoloto and 0.67% to Karabalta Mining Factory.

As of today, the sides have built a workshop for pregnant solution processing, a pumping station, an on-site storage of sulfuric acid, a compressor, a boiler and a chemical laboratory and other facilities. The mining and development of the deposit was started in Jan 2006. As of Dec 2006 the sides had launched 129 wells.