RUSSIA TIGHTLY CONTROLS NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIALS

VIENNA, September 20 (RIA Novosti's Borislav Pechnikov) - "The Russian Federation, as a nuclear power, has always and will continue to do everything necessary to ensure tight control over nuclear materials and technologies," Alexander Rumyantsev, the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said in Vienna in the run-up to the 48th session of the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

According to him, Russian and American specialists in cooperation with IAEA experts carry out expert missions in former Soviet Union countries.

"Fifteen such missions have already been carried out in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Estonia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan," he said. "During these missions, experts identified powerful radioactive sources in the countries and gave expert and organizational assistance to perfect the security of the sources of physical protection of the sources."

He also said that in accordance with an IAEA proposal for countries to remove highly enriched uranium from their research reactors, 13 of the 17 countries with research reactors built by the Soviet Union have decided not to use enriched uranium in their reactors in the future.

"Presently, fresh nuclear fuel has been removed from the research reactors in Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya and Uzbekistan," Mr. Rumyantsev added.

In his opinion, the creation of a dirty nuclear bomb can be prevented only by the joint efforts of the world community.