40 



ticipating in that, and what expectations that there will be a solu- 

 tion, I guess, to all of this, or a start of talking about a solution, 

 and is there an3rthing in setting up this summit in Moscow that 

 would have some sort of a binding agreement among those that are 

 participating? First, how many countries are participating? 



Mr. Bryn. Thank you. Of course, this is a meeting for the G-7 

 group of countries, the seven leading industrialized countries, the 

 United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, 

 and Japan, then meeting together with Russia. 



What can come out of it remains to be seen. The agenda covers 

 three substantive items. The first item has to do with reactor S2ife- 

 ty. I think there we have international processes which have start- 

 ed and which really are working. The nuclear safety account under 

 the EBRD is effective. A lot of work has been done to upgrade the 

 security of power plants in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Eu- 

 ropean countries. 



The third — I skipped the second agenda point for the time being, 

 but the third agenda item point has to do with smuggling, illicit 

 trafficking of nuclear material, and I think there, what we would 

 like to see coming out of the Moscow summit would be a plan of 

 action, how to deal with it. That, again, I feel is very much an orga- 

 nizational problem. It has very much to do to establish procedures 

 to account for nuclear materials and so on. I think it is solvable. 



But where we have not seen the sort of international processes 

 being set up is on the second agenda item, which has to do with 

 the waste issue. That has very much to do, I think, with the lack 

 of information which has been the situation up to now and which 

 we have talked about. We feel now that there is much greater un- 

 derstanding in both Canada, the United States, and other countries 

 among the authorities for these problems. 



I had a meeting yesterday in the State Department here. I was 

 in Ottawa on Monday. We have great hopes that what will come 

 out of the summit will be establishing some processes, because ob- 

 viously one needs to go further into these problems, like Dr. 

 Yablokov said, to get information to make the priorities, because 

 these are costly things. 



And when we make these priorities, we also have to talk about 

 the financing. There are positive signs that the Russian authorities 

 are taking these matters seriously and also will be able to use 

 quite considerable funds for them. But if we want a quick solution, 

 a quick cleanup, we need to start to consider creating some much 

 larger mechanism in order to assist the Russians. 



And I would underline again, we are not talking here about a 

 permanent situation for the next 50 or 100 years. This is a one- 

 time operation to clean up a very deplorable situation which has 

 come about through the political developments in the world during 

 the last 30 or 40 years. Thank you. 



Mr. Hastings. So the waste issue that you are addressing is not 

 confined just to the oceans, is it, but it is also land-based waste 

 then, also? 



Mr. Bryn. That is right. 



Mr. Hastings. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Hastings. 



