By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW, June 9 (Reuters) Russian President Vladimir Putin called for big increases in atomic energy today in a major revamp of the nuclear industry 20 years after the Chernobyl accident curbed the Kremlin's nuclear appetite.

Putin, chairing a meeting of top officials on reorganising the nuclear sector, said Russia should boost its position on world nuclear markets and attacked what he termed discriminatory trade barriers.

He said Russia's nuclear industry needed reform to boost the share of atomic power in generation to 25 per cent from 16 percent and that the nuclear arsenal was a key source of Russia's status in the world, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

''If the condition of the sector remains in the shape we know it is in, then in several years that share of atomic energy in total generation could fall by 2030 to 1-2 per cent,'' the agency quoted Putin as saying.

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, told Putin that Russia will seek to start work on two new reactors a year from 2007, though Putin gave no time frame for boosting atomic energy generation.

The explosion of reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine -- then part of the Soviet Union -- on April 26, 1996, spewed radioactive dust over much of Europe and froze the Kremlin's enthusiasm for nuclear power.

Putin told the meeting, which was also attended by Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov and top generals, that it was vital to maintain Russia's military nuclear strength.

''The solidity of the nuclear shield, the condition of the nuclear weapons complex is an important part of Russia's status as world power,'' Putin said, Tass reported.

The civilian and military parts of Russia's nuclear industry are formally divided and run by different officials.

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