US, Russia want to give all access to N-power

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, July 15: The United States and Russia want to create a system to give all states access to nuclear power while guarding against proliferation of nuclear weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin said today.

Putin, speaking after talks with US President George W Bush, told a news conference a joint initiative envisaged the creation of international enrichment centres under the control of the UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

''We have adopted a joint statement based on our separate initiatives on safe development of nuclear energy,'' he said ahead of a Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg.

''Its main goal is to facilitate stable and reliable supply of all sorts of energy together with reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation. We believe this will become possible after the creation of international enrichment centres united into a single network under strict IAEA control.'' Russia's atomic chief Sergei Kiriyenko said earlier that Bush and Putin would agree to seek a bilateral deal on nuclear energy cooperation between the two countries.

''I expect that the two presidents will announce here the signing of an agreement in principle,'' Kiriyenko said in response to a question about the possibility of a bilateral deal on nuclear energy cooperation.

''The practical agreement will take longer because it has to go through the parliaments and that will take a year,'' he said.

Last week the Washington Post reported that Bush would allow extensive US civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia in a reversal of decades of bipartisan policy. The Post said the move could be worth billions of dollars to Russia but possibly stir an uproar in the US Congress.

The Post said a deal would clear the way for Russia to import and store thousands of tonnes of spent nuclear fuel from US-supplied reactors around the world.

Spent fuel can be reprocessed to extract weapons-grade plutonium, which can be used to fuel nuclear weapons.

Reuters