Two days earlier, ElBaradei told delegates at an IAEA conference in Moscow that he has “begun to encourage multilateral approaches to spent fuel disposal.” At the same session, Russian prime minister Mikhail Fradkov explained that he supported IAEA proposals for international repositories, adding: “Russia is the only country that has the legislation permitting the realisation of this.” ElBaradei later held talks with Fradkov, Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation, and Alexander Rumyantsev, the minister of atomic energy.
Seeing an international repository as a way to store fuel out of the reach of terrorists and rogue states, Elbaradei said: “It’s a very good thing for us. I’d like to push that as much as I can.”
Alexander Agapov of the Russian Atomic Energy Agency told Bellona that the city of Zelenogorsk is a potential site. Built in the 1950s, it hosts a facility called the Krasnoyarsk Mountain Chemical Combine, an underground weapons facility that could be adapted.
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