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Today's paper. Last Updated: 06/02/2012

Secret Czech Nuclear Deal

PRAGUE -- The Czech and Russian governments have struck a secret deal allowing Prague to send nuclear fuel for reprocessing and to take back material including plutonium, environmentalists said Friday.


The environmental group Greenpeace, which revealed the agreement's existence in Prague, denounced it as a breach of an international treaty which is aimed at halting the spread of nuclear weapons, and said it should be canceled.


A senior Czech official denied that the agreement, signed in Moscow on Dec. 4, breached the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and said no shipments of spent nuclear fuel would be made to Russia in the coming years, if ever.


Prague would accept inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency if such shipments began, said Ivan Novak, a senior official at the Ministry of Industry and Trade.


Greenpeace released copies of the agreement leaked to its Moscow office at a news conference in Prague on Friday.


The agreement allows the Czech Republic to send spent fuel from its Soviet-designed nuclear power plants to Russia, where the material would be reprocessed and returned for further use.




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