Moscow, 14 September: Russia will remove nuclear fuel from all Soviet-era research reactors abroad. "We are prepared to remove fresh and spent nuclear fuel from all research reactors built abroad in Soviet projects," the head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), Aleksandr Rumyantsev, told the ITAR-TASS correspondent today. He noted that on Friday [10 September] 11 kg of highly- enriched uranium from a reactor at the Uzbek Academy of Sciences Nuclear Research Institute was taken to Russia.

Official spokesman for Rosatom Nikolay Shingarev said in conversation with the ITAR-TASS correspondent that "the operation was carried out as instructed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and was funded by the US Energy Department under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative and an intergovernmental agreement between Russia and the USA".

The fuel from Uzbekistan, Shingarev said, has now gone to the Dmitrovgrad Nuclear Reactor Scientific Research Institute in Ulyanovsk Region "where it will be reprocessed for subsequent use at Russian nuclear power stations". [Passage omitted]