MOSCOW, March 19 (UPI) -- A top Russian official said international uranium enrichment facilities are a key priority to ensure access to fuel for nuclear power plants.
Russia has already created a uranium enrichment center in Angarsk, in cooperation with Kazakstan, while Moscow and Washington are discussing future cooperation on such facilities.
"The essence of the functioning of such a center is that the broadest possibilities will be provided to our partners for participating in its work, but the uranium enrichment technology belongs to us and only to us," Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said, Itar-Tass reports.
Enriching uranium is a process to make fuel for nuclear reactors, but can also lead to weapons grade uranium.
The United States and Russia have begun formulating plans to set up regimes that would create an adequate supply of uranium for countries needing the fuel, as well as a mechanism to retrieve the used fuel, since it too is a proliferation risk.
"For the first time in the Soviet and Russian practice, an enrichment plant has been taken off the list of especially secret facilities and opened for the application of (International Atomic Energy Agency) guarantees," Ivanov said, referring to Angarsk.
