(September 16, 1994) The multilateral effort to assist the 14 newly independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union (all except Russia) to keep their fissile material security regime secure is moving ahead quickly according to senior IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) officials.
(418.4141) WISE Amsterdam - For safeguard implementation the IAEA has identified and budgeted for needed equipment. Some of the equipment already purchased, including radiation monitors, seals and cameras, is being installed.
Nearly all activity of the Coordination Support Program so far has been in the three countries hosting nuclear weapons (Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) even though agency safe-guards will not extend to installations where arms are stored awaiting transfer to Russia. Safeguards agreements with those three countries are expected to come into force by the end of the year.
According to Svein Thorstensen, director of the IAEA's safeguards operation division, of those 14 newly independent states only Moldova and Turkmenistan have no nuclear programs. Facilities subject to safeguards in the 12 other states 'have now been identified and associated information about nuclear material flow quantities and categories obtained".
The facilities include:
- Armenia: two YVER reactors
- Belarus: two critical assemblies, fresh and spent fuel storage
- Estonia: uranium ore refining plant, two training reactors
- Georgia: two research reactors, research and development facility, critical assembly
- Kazakhstan: BN-350 fast breeder reactor, four research reactors, low-enriched uranium fuel fabrication plant, R&D facility, critical assembly, uranium mining and ore refining plants
- Kyrgyzstan: uranium mining plants
- Latvia: research reactor, critical assembly
- Lithuania: two RBMK reactors
- Tajikistan: uranium mining and ore refining plants
- Ukraine: four RBMK reactors (with separate spent fuel storage), 16 VVER reactors, R&D facility (with several significant quantifies of high-enriched uranium), critical assembly, uranium ore terming plant
- Uzbekistan: two research reactors, several mining and refining plants
Source: Nuclear Fuel, 29 August 1994