Clinton's Kyiv visit capped by announcement of Chornobyl closure (06/11/00)

Clinton's Kyiv visit capped by announcement of Chornobyl closure

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - With U.S. President Bill Clinton standing at his side, Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma announced on June 5 that the Chornobyl nuclear facility, in 1986 the site of the world's largest nuclear accident, would be permanently closed on December 15.

Mr. Clinton was on a short, six-hour stop in Kyiv during the last leg of the final European tour of his presidency, to express wholehearted U.S. support for recent Ukrainian economic reform initiatives and to provide additional U.S. financial incentives for those efforts and the Chornobyl closure.

"I am very proud and moved to be here today - this is World Environment Day - for this historic announcement by President Kuchma that the final reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant will be shut down and the entire plant closed forever on December 15," said Mr. Clinton during a brief press conference at the Mariinsky Palace, the official presidential residence.

Minutes before Mr. Kuchma had made the long-awaited pronouncement on Chornobyl's fate, which fulfills a 1995 promise made by Ukraine before the Group of Seven most industrialized nations to close the nuclear energy complex, with their financial support.

Mr. Clinton promised $78 million towards the construction of a new sarcophagus over the destroyed No. 4 nuclear reactor at Chornobyl and an additional $52 million in new programs to aid Ukraine, much of it in nuclear energy-related initiatives: $30 million for development of alternate nuclear fuel sources; $2 million for expansion of the U.S. nuclear safety assistance program; as well as $25 million for the development of a small and medium-sized private businesses.

Presidents Kuchma and Clinton also signed a document that eliminates previous quotas on commercial space launches by Ukraine, while the United States received assurances from Ukraine that it had begun to shut down illegal video and audio bootlegging operations and would abide by international intellectual property rights treaties.

While the two presidents discussed various problems in trade relations, corruption, the International Monetary Fund and Ukraine's reforms, the central thrust and achievement of the talks was the Chornobyl issue.

Ukraine consistently has voiced its disappointment with the amount of funding it has received from the international community for the solution of its Chornobyl headache, which it has stated is a global problem.

Ukraine has determined that it will need $500 million for the decommissioning of the Chornobyl facility and $400 million for safety-related ecological maintenance, as well as funds for the retraining and relocation of Chornobyl workers and the completion of two nuclear reactors at the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power complexes to offset energy losses due to Chornobyl's shutdown.

These costs are in addition to the $760 million required to finance the reconstruction of the sarcophagus over the damaged reactor which is slowly crumbling and beginning to leak. A recent report by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development estimated that all costs related to the Chornobyl shutdown could run well over $2 billion.

The substantial $78 million U.S. grant is the first pledge in a new round of international fund-raising that the Ukrainian government has initiated in conjunction with the G-7 to raise the financing needed to rebuild the sarcophagus. More pledges are expected during an international donors' conference slated for Berlin on July 5. The goal is to raise an additional $282 million to meet the $760 million target. An earlier conference in New York in 1997 brought in some $400 million, to which the United States contributed an earlier sum of $78 million.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer said on June 7 that if the other countries match their earlier contributions, as the United States has done, the Berlin conference will be a success. He also explained that the United States will continue to assist Ukraine with Chornobyl-related problems even after the facility is closed.

"The president brought assurances that on December 16 we will not walk away from this issue," said Mr. Pifer.

To help Ukraine modernize its nuclear energy sector, President Clinton promised Ukraine an additional $2 million for Chornobyl's closure and improvements at Ukraine's four other nuclear power plants, to include decontamination and decommissioning planning. The money will be used for safety assessment assistance of the Chornobyl plant, as well as for operation and safety upgrades at the other facilities.

He also announced a $30 million nuclear fuel qualification project that will allow Ukraine to develop alternate fuel supplies for its nuclear reactors and thus become less dependent on a single source. The project will give Ukraine the technological know-how to evaluate and certify the reliability and safety of new suppliers. Today Ukraine depends on Russia for most of its nuclear fuel rods at costs that are higher than those on the world market.

Mr. Clinton also offered other incentives to keep Ukraine moving westward in its economic and political reform commitments. In recognition of Kyiv's strong commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, the reform of its space industry and the new impetus given to reforms, the United States agreed to cancel an earlier agreement that limited the number of commercial satellite launches Ukraine could undertake. The new agreement will allow Ukraine to draw customers and resources from the large market of international corporations attempting to put communications satellites into orbit.

To help the development of Ukraine's small and medium-sized businesses, Mr. Clinton announced that the United States will contribute $25 million in a program aimed at improving business management skills, competitiveness and productivity, as well as for enhancing the political environment for small business growth and increasing access to financial resources.

As part of the project, the United States will initiate a micro-enterprise credit program for Ukraine, in cooperation with the Polish "Fundusz Mikro," a similar program that has achieved considerable success. The initiative will work to overcome the lack of credit resources for small business ventures, a major constraint to economic growth in Ukraine. The Fundusz Mikro program has provided more than 33,000 small loans averaging $2,000 to some 20,000 entrepreneurs in Poland.

Two documents were signed to help spur international investment in Ukraine, one a treaty on double taxation, the other a document on cooperation to combat corruption and organized crime.

Mr. Clinton also agreed to work for Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organization and expressed his support for Ukraine's moves to obtain international status as a free market economy, which would help to give it free trade status with the United States.

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