Ukraine and U.S. sign agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation (05/10/98)

Ukraine and U.S. sign agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation

by Pavel Politiuk
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - Ukraine and the United States signed an agreement on May 6 on peaceful nuclear cooperation between the two countries that allows the former Soviet republic to export new nuclear technologies for Soviet-designed nuclear stations.

"This agreement becomes the cornerstone in the development of a strategic partnership between our two countries," said Ukraine's new foreign affairs minister, Borys Tarasiuk, after signing the documents with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer.

Mr. Tarasiuk said the initial benefits of the signing will be real assistance from U.S. nuclear and energy companies to bring new technologies to make Ukrainian reactors safer and more effective.

"The treaty means that now Ukraine can look for different sources of nuclear fuel for Ukrainian nuclear reactors," said Ambassador Pifer, and U.S. companies can now help Ukraine to construct a full nuclear fuel cycle.

Ambassador Pifer also read a statement of congratulations from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. "I hope that this document becomes the basis for future cooperation," Secretary Albright said in the statement.

The Ukrainian foreign affairs minister indicated that after the signing Kyiv expects a series of foreign investments from U.S. companies into the Ukrainian market, and specifically the energy sector.

Negotiations on the treaty between the U.S. and Ukraine lasted more than a year, but the agreement was reached only after Ukraine declined to participate in a Russian-Iranian nuclear deal.

In March, during a one-day official visit to Kyiv by Secretary of State Albright, Ukrainian officials pledged not to allow the shipment of two turbines to the Iranian nuclear power plant under construction in the city of Bushehr.

Russian firms have contracted to construct the nuclear power plant, estimated to be worth $850 million, and expected that Ukraine's Turboatom factory, located in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, would supply the turbines.

The United States and Israel strictly opposed the deal, saying that Russia, and to some degree Ukraine, were helping to bring nuclear technology to Iran, which could be a threat to world peace.

Ukraine had said that it was not involved with the deal because what Turboatom had agreed to was a deal with Russian companies.

In the end Ukraine agreed to the U.S. demands because it felt that the deal Washington had offered was better than what the sale of the turbines would have brought. "The position of President [Leonid] Kuchma is simple," said his press secretary, Oleksander Maidannyk, on the day of the signing. "Those political benefits that will occur because Ukraine declined the deal will be much more than the real money from selling the turbines."

The document will open the way for U.S. companies to participate in the construction of two new nuclear reactor complexes in Rivne and Khmelnytskyi that the government has been hard-pressed to finance and which it says are needed on line before the Chornobyl facility can be shut down.

Ukraine promised the West to close down Chornobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, by 2000 and has been waiting for aid from the Group of Seven industrialized countries.