BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

11/10/2007

Lukashenko: Belarus will build nuclear reactors

Aleksander Lukashenko, Belarus' authoritarian President, on Thursday declared his country's firm intention to construct nuclear reactors as soon as possible, the Belapan news service reported.

"We have determined that there is no alternative to the creation of our own nuclear energy, as a means of protecting our national security," Lukashenko said.

"With out atomic power stations Belarus will not survive, and so we must build them, and we will build them," he said.

The remarks were the strongest declaration yet by the former collective farm boss that Belarus would embrace nuclear power as soon as it could, despite reservations abroad.

Nations neighbouring Belarus have expressed fears the former Soviet republic, isolated as it is from Western countries as a result of Lukashenko's authoritarian regime, might construct an unsafe nuclear reactor, posing a environmental threat.

Officials in NATO headquarters have in the past worried Lukashenko himself, a political pariah banned from most wealthy nations, might use the development of nuclear energy as a first step towards creation of weapons-grade radioactive materials.

Lukshenko in a speech to Belarusian officials said his decision to make development of nuclear power a top state priority lay first and foremost in Belarus' need to gain energy independence.

Actual construction of the first reactor would begin in 2008, he said.

Russian rather than Western nuclear energy firms will provide the Belarusians the necessary technologies, according to the report.

The Belarusian economy in recent years has been rocked by Russian natural gas and oil price hikes, as a result sending the cost of living for the base of Lukashenko's popular support, rural and retired Belarusians with modest incomes.

Lukashenko accused Western nations of using purported fears of a Belarusian nuclear programme, as pretext to intervene in the Belarusian economy, so as to undermine Belarusian sovereignty.

"We need today to determine by whom and how our atomic energy programmes are being delayed," Lukashenko said.

He also hit out at Russia, whose energy companies currently hold a lock on important sectors of the Belarusian economy including oil and gas transport, and petrol and diesel retailing.

"We must work harder to create our own systems," he said. dpa

Source:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/239456/Lukashenko_Belarus_will_build_nuclear_reactors