Ukraine to Continue Nuclear Cooperation with US – Yanukovych

KIEV, March 20 (RIA Novosti) – The president of Ukraine said Wednesday that his country wants to continue cooperating on nuclear nonproliferation with the United States and build on its past achievements.

Viktor Yanukovych said at a meeting with US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman in Kiev that combined efforts in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons underscored the two nations’ reliable relationship.

“We are ready to continue fruitful cooperation in nuclear security and nonproliferation issues,” Yanukovych said.

The United States has been actively engaged in seeking to mitigate the potential threat of poorly secured nuclear facilities and weapons stockpiles across the former Soviet Union since the early 1990s.

Yanukovych pledged at a nuclear summit in 2010 to ensure that Ukraine transferred all its enriched uranium to Russian depositories by March 2012. The United States offered to finance the process.

Kiev’s success in meeting the deadline was reciprocated by a US grant of $67 million to Ukraine for the construction of a nuclear research installation.

“We are now introducing state-of-the-art technology to replace high-enriched uranium with low-enriched [uranium],” Yanukovych said.