KIEV, December 12 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Monday he proposed building a nuclear waste disposal plant in the Chernobyl area that had seen the world's worst nuclear accident nearly 20 years ago.
"We should not only attract the world's attention to the problems of the Chernobyl area, but also draft a complex plan of its restoration," Yushchenko said at a session of the organizing committee established to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the explosion that all but destroyed the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 and released radioactive emissions that badly contaminated large areas of the western Soviet Union.
The organizing committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Stanislav Stashevsky should work out a plan containing "extraordinary moves" and giving priority to socio-economic issues, Yushchenko said.
"The construction of a plant to process and dispose waste from Ukrainian nuclear power plants could be one of these moves," he said, adding that Ukraine annually paid $60-80 million to Russia for disposing its nuclear waste.
"We should revive the Chernobyl area where possible," the president said.
He also said all projects on the development of the Chernobyl area needed public and expert approval and should be economically expedient.
