Russia sees rocket deal with Kazakhs in month

MOSCOW, Sep 10 (Reuters) Russia hopes to reach agreement within a month on resuming launches of its Proton booster rockets, which were suspended last week after one of them crashed in Kazakhstan, a space official said today.

''I believe we will settle this within a month,'' Russia's RIA news agency quoted Anatoly Perminov, head of Russian space agency Roskosmos, as saying.

Perminov was speaking in the United Arab Emirates, where he was accompanying President Vladimir Putin on a visit.

An unmanned Proton booster, carrying a Japanese satellite and filled with highly toxic fuel, crashed into open countryside near the industrial city of Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan on September 6.

Kazakhstan, home to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which it rents to Russia, banned all Proton launches and accused Moscow of not doing enough to ensure the safety of its space launches.

REUTERS GL RAI1826