Jan 17 - BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

Emergencies Minister Volodymyr Shandra has said that nuclear fuel stored at three power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is to be removed from the reactors by 2010.

"I have approved a rather ambitious plan to unload fuel from three power units at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by 2010," he told journalists in Kiev on 17 January.

Shandra said that this fuel would be kept in nuclear waste storage facility No 1 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

He stressed that all activities at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant "were being watched closely by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the State Committee for Nuclear Regulation".

The Chernobyl disaster happened on 26 April 1986. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant's unit No 3 was shut down on 15 December 2000.

Originally published by Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Kiev, in Russian 0919 17 Jan 08.

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