Nuclear Material Whisked Away to Russias

August 23, 2002

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) — Fearing a possible terrorist attack, Serbian police sealed off nearly half of Belgrade early Thursday while unused nuclear reactor fuel was brought to the airport for shipment to Russia.

Helicopters hovered over the city as heavily armed police officers guarded the 22-mile route from the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, just outside Belgrade, to the airport.

The heavy security was aimed at preventing a terrorist attack, said Dragan Domazet, Serbia's Minister for Technology, Science and Development. Serbia is the larger Yugoslav republic, with Montenegro.

The mission, planned in secrecy over a year, was organized to eliminate what many weapons experts regarded as one of the world's most dangerous nuclear repositories — a large and unusually vulnerable stash of the kind of weapons-grade uranium that would be prized by the governments of Iraq, Iran and North Korea and terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.

The extraction was hailed by the Bush administration and nonproliferation groups as one of the most significant actions since Sept. 11 to prevent nuclear proliferation. It also was described as evidence of a new level of cooperation with Russia, the original source of the material decades ago. Moscow had previously resisted calls to accept responsibility for Soviet-era nuclear material now stored at dozens of facilities around the world.

He said that the fuel could be used to help develop nuclear weapons. The shipment included 6,000 rods, each about 4 inches long and 1 inches in diameter.

The Soviet Union gave the fuel rods to the Vinca institute in 1976 for research work.

Following the ouster of former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, the new Serbian government began a program to reduce environmental hazards. Removing toxic and nuclear materials is part of the program.

Domazet said that the removal of nuclear fuel was organized with the help of international groups and the U.S. government, which donated $10 million to decommission Vinca.

Bringing the rods to the airport took about six hours, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

"We were vigilant and ready to cope with any potential assailant including bin Laden himself," the officer said.

The cargo did not pose any environmental threat because "these bars are completely harmless until they burn in a reactor," Domazet said.

The Vinca nuclear reactor was developed in early 1950s as a part of former Yugoslavia's national nuclear program. It was closed and partly decommissioned in early '80s.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-08-23-nuclear-russia_x.htm