The world's nuclear watchdog will help Serbia collect funds to quickly get rid of its poorly stored radioactive waste that represents both security and health hazard, the agency's outgoing chief said Friday.
Russia has agreed to take 2.3 metric tons of the spent fuel from a closed Serbian nuclear reactor to ensure the radioactive waste does not end up in terrorist hands, and prevent possible environmental disaster.
Some 8,000 fuel rods stored in the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Vinca, outside Belgrade, contain radioactive material that could potentially be used in a bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, discovered in a recent inspection that the rods were being kept in poorly guarded storage areas, triggering fears they could be targeted for theft.
The outgoing IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said after visiting the Vinca site that the fuel rods are "corroding and degrading" in their storage pools.
"We have been working hard to make sure that we move all the spent fuel from Vinca," ElBaradei said after signing a nuclear safeguards agreement with the Serbian government.
The radioactive rods should be transported to Russia under a US$25 million (18 million) deal, he said.
Most of the funds to be paid to Russia have already been provided by the United States and the European Union, but some $2 million still need to be secured for the transport to go ahead, said Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic.
"We are very close to having all the necessary resources, the 25 million dollars, that would enable us to move forward and transfer the waste out of Serbia," he said. "We should be able to conclude that agreement within the next couple of months."
The Vinca reactor was built with Russian technology in 1959 and shut down in 2002.
