Armenian official says foreign funds make nuclear plant “more safe”

Armenian official says foreign funds make nuclear plant “more safe”

Arminfo
8 Jul 04

YEREVAN

The head of the Armenian State Atomic Inspection Directorate, Ashot
Martirosyan, has told an Arminfo correspondent that the programme of
technical upgrading of the Armenian nuclear station will cost 40m
dollars. He said that the money will be used to carry out some
technical and logistic measures which will make the station more safe.

Ashot Martirosyan said that the US had recently announced the
allocation of 1m dollars to be used when the station would close for
major repairs on 23 July this year. The head of the Armenian State
Atomic Inspection Directorate said that the assistance was mainly
provided by the USA and the European Union although the latter has
lately become less active in the allocation of funds for these
purposes. “The European Union has helped us a lot in improving the
station’s safety as part of TACIS programme however, this help has
lately been frozen due to political constraints,” he said. He added,
however, that since the station remains to be a high risk facility,
the EU will continue to allocate funds to improve its safety. Britain
has also allocated funds towards that. He noted that Russia provides
only technical support in maintaining the plant’s safety at a proper
level.

[Passage omitted: recap of reports on earlier funds]

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress