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Tuesday, 04 May 2010 08:39 |
UN, May 4, Dmitry Gornostayev. Kiev will get rid of stockpiles of highly enriched uranium for its conversion into low-enriched this year, told the Foreign Minister of Ukraine Konstantin Gryshchenko, speaking at the UN headquarters in New York at the conference to review the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
About the decision of Ukraine to fully abandon the storage of highly enriched uranium on its territory until 2012, said the President Viktor Yanukovych during the summit on nuclear safety in Washington on April 12-13. It is assumed that the highly enriched uranium from Ukraine will go to Russia, and thence will be returned to low-enriched uranium, which will be used for research purposes.
"As a first step, this year we are taking away a significant portion of our reserves for processing it into low enriched uranium for the use in Ukrainian nuclear research centers," - said Gryshchenko. He also recalled that getting rid of highly enriched uranium Kiev will be the case for "adequate international assistance".
The refusal of highly enriched uranium, which was actively supported by the U.S., drew sharp criticism from Ukrainian opposition, in particular the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, saying that it was a decision detrimental to the security of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister at the conference on Tuesday told that this voluntary step in Kiev shows that its country was "serious about nonproliferation and disarmament". He also called on the other countries that possess stocks of enriched uranium, to follow the example of Ukraine.
Gryshchenko in his statement also expressed support for strengthening the NPT regime and reiterated that Ukraine has become the first country to voluntarily waive nuclear weapons after receiving security guarantees from nuclear power states.
According to him, the decision was largely due to the enormous damage that was done to Ukraine as a result of the Chernobyl accident.
Ukrainian Minister welcomed the signing of a new Russia-US treaty on reducing strategic offensive weapons, as well as the recent agreement between Russia and the IAEA to establish an international uranium enrichment center in Angarsk, a reserve of low enriched uranium that could be used to address the IAEA. |
