13 May 2004 12:03
Germany to fund construction of Russian storage facility for nuclear submarines
Berlin, 13 May: Germany has expressed readiness to allocate 300m euros to construct an on-shore facility for
long-term storage of reactor sections of the Russian Navy's decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines, Sergey
Antipov, deputy head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, has told ITAR-TASS.
Antipov is holding negotiations at the German Foreign Ministry regarding prospects for Russian-German cooperation in
relation to the implementation of the agreement on the multilateral nuclear and environmental programme in Russia.
The construction of the storage facility that will be carried out off Sayda Bay in the Barents Sea "is the most
large-scale project within the Global Partnership programme for non-proliferation of weapons and materials of mass
destruction", Antipov added.
This document was adopted in 2002 by G8 leaders at the summit in Kananaskis, Canada.
"Some 10 contracts have been concluded with Germany over a year alone, tens of millions dollars are being
disbursed. Germany could see more than once that the allocated funds were being spent exactly on what they had been
meant for," he said.
The storage facility was designed by Kurchatov Nuclear Physics Institute and German energy company Energiewerke Nord
GmbH.
[In a separate report, at 0433 gmt on 13 May, ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian, quoted Antipov as saying
that to scrap the remaining nuclear-powered submarines, Russia needs 3bn dollars. It allocates 65-70m dollars annually
for this purpose. If the West refuses to render assistance to Russia in this domain, it will be able to resolve this
problem on its own, but in this case it will take some 40 years rather than 10-12 years, as planned.]
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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