MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Kazakhstan have established their first joint venture to enrich uranium, in the Siberian city of Angarsk near Irkutsk, Russia's nuclear power agency said Thursday.
Earlier in the month, the countries' presidents agreed that the Central Asian country would contribute to initiatives on forming international centers providing nuclear fuel cycle services in Russia.
President Vladimir Putin had proposed the idea of international uranium enrichment centers at the beginning of the year, as a means of calming international tensions over Iran's nuclear problem.
Kazakhstan holds 15% of the world's uranium reserves and has an expanding mining sector, which aims to hit at an annual production of 15,000 tons of uranium by 2010. Under the Soviet system, Russia and Kazakhstan shared a nuclear power infrastructure under the Ministry of Medium Machine Building.
The head of Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said earlier in the year that the Soviet-era nuclear infrastructure needed to be restored both for domestic aims, and to meet global demand.
In September, Kiriyenko said a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, would soon arrive in Moscow to continue work on establishing the international enrichment center in Angarsk, about 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow.
The city "has always been connected with the nuclear sector's civilian side. The enterprise in Angarsk can be put under IAEA control, and it has additional reserve capacities," he said then.
Kiriyenko said the center would make it possible to control the amount of uranium delivered for enrichment, and the amount of outgoing enriched uranium, and that it could be opened as early as 2007.
He proposed granting the center special zone status to ensure that its operations are secured with legal guarantees.
