OTTAWA -- The Soviet Union has formally agreed to pay Canada $2.55 million -- less than half the original claim -- for damages caused by the disintegration of a Soviet satellite over the Northwest Territories in 1978, External Affairs Minister Mark MacGuigan said Thursday.
MacGuigan said the two countries signed a formal agreement Thursday settling the long-standing claim.
A tentative agreement was announced last November after three rounds of talks, but had to be ratified by both governments.
The agreement was signed in Moscow by Canada's ambassador to the USSR, Geoffrey Pearson, and Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs N.S. Ryzhov.
The nuclear-powered satellite 'Cosmos 954' crashed through the atmosphere January 24, 1978, and disintegrated over a largely barren and unpopulated area near Yellowknife, the largest town of the Northwest Territories.
Only a few pieces of the aircraft, which carried radioactive power cells, were ever found despite a Canadian Armed Forces search of the region which cost more than $13.5 million. The recovery effort, which lasted several weeks, required hundreds of personnel and the use of sophisticated equipment.
Canada eventually wrote off the 'normal search costs' and submitted a bill to Soviet authorities for $5.13 million in January, 1979, a departmental spokesman said. In March 1979, the figure was reduced to $5.12 million.
'This is the best deal we could get,' a departmental spokesman said when the tentative agreement was initialed. 'Any time you negotiate a settlement like this one, the bargaining is going to be tough -- with any country.'
The Soviets were legally obliged to pay Canada for costs incurred in the clean-up under the Convention of Liability of Damage Caused by Space Objects. Both Canada and the Soviet Union were signatories to the 1972 international agreement.
