OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2008. During a meeting in Vienna on Monday Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei and Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko are expected to discuss the possibility of creating a nuclear fuel bank in Angarsk.

Deputy Director General of IAEA Yury Sokolov says that IAEA and Russia have discussed this initiative for 1.5 years already. There are some details that cause certain controversy.

One of them is transfer of ownership rights to nuclear materials. One more important aspect is trust of third states in this bank. “It seems we have come to agreement and can now move forward,” Sokolov said.

In 2003 IAEA said that the problem of control over sensitive technologies would be an “Achilles’ heel” in terms of compliance with the nonproliferation regime (uranium enrichment and processing of irradiated nuclear fuel).

Presently, IAEA has worked out a multi-national approach to this problem. The first point is guaranteed access to nuclear fuel cycle services for the countries already having nuclear power plants, and Russia’s initiative for creating an international uranium enrichment center and nuclear fuel bank in Angarsk under IAEA’s control is an answer to this question.

The next points are transition from personal ownership of nuclear fuel cycle technologies to international control; establishment of centers under IAEA’s aegis; construction of nuclear centers by international consortiums.