Kazakhstan indicated it remained prepared to house a multilateral civilian nuclear fuel repository despite criticism of the effort by Iran, the London Telegraph reported yesterday. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board earlier this month approved plans for the fuel bank, which would offer nations civilian atomic reactor fuel on an apolitical basis in hopes of deterring them from pursuing their own capability to produce such material -- a process that could also generate nuclear-weapon fuel.

Iran, which for years has pressed ahead with a uranium enrichment program in the face of international protests, quickly ruled out use of the fuel bank.

"Its conditions are for countries which do not have the capability to produce, and given the Islamic Republic's capability to produce, this proposal is unacceptable for us," Iranian Atomic Energy Organization chief and acting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said two days after the board decision.

Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Umarov said his country still intended to participate in the fuel bank project.

"The decision about setting up the international fuel bank has already been approved. There's no way back on this," Umarov said. "Considering that all the necessary conditions on infrastructure and on the safeguarding facilities, everything is in place, I don't think it will take too much time for us to establish the whole thing."

Should it receive IAEA designation as the host state, Kazakhstan has two possible that could house nuclear material for the program, the official said.

"Kazakhstan is the only country which has expressed its willingness to host such a bank on their territory, and I don't know at this point of time of any other country that has plans to propose," he said.

"We can use the same facilities we used for storing nuclear weapons in Soviet times. We have the Semipalatinsk site, as well as the facilities in Usk-Kamenogorsk, and the conditions there are fully compatible with IAEA guidelines," Umarov said.

Back