Putin to press Bush on Russian nuclear sales in US

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said today he planned to press President George W Bush to open up the US market for nuclear material at talks this week.

Putin, in answers to emailed questions that were posted on the Kremlin's website www.kremlin.ru, said he wanted an end to US limits on the sale of Russian nuclear materials.

Russian nuclear officials say they want changes to agreements that give US uranium supplier USEC the right to buy uranium recovered from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons and an end to US anti-dumping duties on other uranium sales.

Asked if he would discuss the direct sale of nuclear fuel to US customers at a meeting with Bush, Putin said: "The problem that you have touched on does exist and we will have something to discuss on this topic with Mr Bush." "I would note that we do not agree with discriminatory measures which currently are in force in the US for enterprises in the Russian atomic sector," he said.

"The task which we have set ourselves is the free access to the market. Russian atomic companies do not need preferential treatment. The only thing we want is equal competition on external markets, including the American market." Putin and Bush are expected to discuss the idea of a US-Russian deal on the peaceful use of atomic energy when they meet on Saturday in St Petersburg ahead of the Group of Eight summit.

Seeking to refine Russia's vast energy resources into geopolitical clout, Putin has placed energy security at the heart of the agenda for the weekend's G8 summit.

Kremlin officials see energy -- particularly oil, gas and nuclear -- as a new arrow in Russia's geopolitical quiver after the chaos of the 1990s and the fall of the Soviet Union.

The United States and Russia agreed in 1993 to convert 500 tonnes of highly enriched uranium (HEU) into low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The following year USEC, then a state company, and Russia's Techsnabexport (Tenex) signed a contract.

Under the agreements, highly enriched uranium, extracted from Russian warheads, is converted into low-enriched uranium, which is bought by USEC for use in commercial power plants.

The programme has eliminated 11,038 nuclear warheads, or 276 tons of bomb-grade nuclear material, as of the end of June.

But Russian nuclear officials say the price they receive for the fuel is too low compared with prices on the world market, where uranium has soared in recent years.

Putin said Russian nuclear companies should be able to sell uranium directly to US customers without having to go through a middleman.

Russian nuclear companies "would like to deliver energy (grade) uranium for your atomic stations directly and not through a monopoly, a middle-man, which in our opinion is placed artificially," Putin said.

Russian nuclear officials also say they want an end to all anti-dumping restrictions in place against Russian nuclear materials since the early 1990s.

- REUTERS