Russia, US sign nuclear energy deal

Posted 05 7 2008 10:43AM

MOSCOW (AFP) - The United States and Russia signed an agreement in Moscow on Tuesday for cooperation in the nuclear energy industry between the two former Cold War foes.

The agreement will allow US and Russian companies to form joint ventures in the nuclear sector and gives the go-ahead for exchanges of nuclear technology between the two countries, officials said.

Russia will also be able to reprocess spent nuclear fuel originating in the United States, which accounts for most of the world market, in a move that has raised fears of Russia being turned into a nuclear dump.

The agreement opens "large opportunities in the area of business," Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's state nuclear agency Rosatom, said after signing the agreement with US Ambassador to Moscow William Burns.

Kiriyenko also denied that Russia would start importing nuclear waste.

"Once nuclear rivals, today nuclear partners, the US and Russia now have a framework to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purpose and to advance nuclear energy worldwide," the US embassy said in a statement.

US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin inked the agreement at a summit in Kennebunkport in the United States last year and discussed it again in the Russian resort of Sochi last month.