OSLO, Norway, April 5 -- The armaments aboard the sunken Russian submarine Kursk came into question again Thursday after Norwegian television reported it was carrying nuclear weapons, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
Russia denied the report, which quoted a member of the Russian commission investigating the disaster and a Norwegian expert.
The Kursk sank last August during a training exercise in the Arctic. All 118 sailors on board died.
TV-2 quoted Grigori Tomchin, a member of the investigating commission, as saying he was, "tired of the secrecy surrounding the wreck."
"We have known (there were nuclear weapons) for a long time," Tomchin said.
The conclusions of Tomchin are supported by Harald Ramfjord, a Norwegian engineer who has been planning with others to salvage the Kursk. Ramfjord works for the Global Tool Management offshore oil company," The BBC reported.
"One of the documents I had access to said there were two atomic missiles on board," Ramfjord said.
Norwegian embassy officials in Moscow met with officials to the Russian Department for Foreign Affairs over the report, but the Russians reiterated that Kursk carried no weapons when it samk.
TV-2 said the missiles, with 500 kiloton warheads, were SS-19s, or Shipwrecks in NATO terminology. A BBC Russian affairs analyst says that President Vladmir Putin may have not been informed of the weapons, even though he is commander in chief.
Ramfjord said he would not move forward with the rescue if the missiles were still there. The operation to lift the wreck from 350 feet to the surface is due to start in August, and will cost an estimated $70 million.
