The governments of Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, are to produce nuclear fuel in a joint venture, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said in Kiev on Tuesday. Speaking at a joint press conference with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Yanukovych said he and the Kazakh leader had just inked a plan for the national atomic energy agencies of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Russia to mine, refine, and distribute uranium for use in all three former Soviet republics, according to dpa. "We (Ukraine) already had a preliminary agreement with Russian President Viktor Medvedev (for the creation of integrated uranium enrichment company) and so now we can fairly say, that there is a trilateral agreement," Yanukovych said. Some of the uranium ore processing and fuel production would take place at a Ukrainian factory, and the three countries' ownership of the uranium enrichment joint venture would be equal one-third shares, he said. Ukraine holds one of the world's largest reserves of uranium ore, but ore refining and manufacture of finished nuclear fuel assemblies currently takes place in Russia. The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power disaster in north Ukraine made nuclear energy a controversial issue in the country. Ukraine produces just over 50 per cent of its electricity with nuclear reactors. Energy independence, and domestic production of nuclear fuel from ore to finished fuel assemblies, has been a priority for previous Ukrainian governments, but Russian support for the idea was lacking from 2003 - 2009, when pro-Europe politicians controlled Ukraine's government and legislature. Yanukovych, an outspoken supporter of closer Russo-Ukrainian relations, has since coming to power in February engineered a deals with Moscow, most prominently in April with a treaty giving Russia naval base rights in the Ukrainian Black Sea port Sevastopol, in exchange for reduced prices for Russian natural gas sold to Ukraine.
