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- 6 



President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin 

 announced at their summit meeting in September 1994, that 

 cooperation in the resolution of the problems of processing and 

 storage of Russian liquid radioactive wastes in the North of 

 Russia was an important component of any regime for effective 

 protection of environmental quality and the natural resources of 

 the Arctic. Specifically, their announcement stated that: 



The Russian Federation and the United States of America 

 confirmed their readiness to cooperate in consistently 

 preventing the dumping of liquid radioactive wastes, in 

 accordance with the London Convention, and to proceed to a 

 solution of the problem of Arctic pollution from all sources. 



To this end, Russia and the United States agreed to 

 undertake, in cooperation with Norway and other interested 

 countries, a step-by-step expansion and upgrade of the 

 treatment facility in Murmansk. At the same time, Russia 

 stated its intention to continue to abide by its voluntary 

 commitment to prohibit the dumping of liquid radioactive 

 wastes under the London Convention with a view to eventual 

 formal adherence to the prohibition. 



It is important for Russia to support the ban and not to 

 dump in the ocean, not just in the Arctic but also in the north 

 Pacific where Japan has concentrated similar efforts. Japan had 

 agreed to provide up to $15 million to construct processing and 

 storage facilities near Vladivostok, moving this issue to center 

 stage in the Japan-Russia relationship. Japan has made it 

 clear, however, that such financial assistance would be severely 

 jeopardized if Russian dumping continues. 



Whether we discuss the Murmansk facility or Vladivostok or 

 dumping in general, we can assume the environmental side of the 

 Russian bureaucracy is with us (and Japan) on the issue. 

 However, the problem rests with the Russian Navy. The Navy is 

 the institution with the budgetary responsibility to deal with 

 the storage problem and we are endeavoring to work with them on 

 this issue. 



At the end of 1994, the United States and Russia signed an 

 agreement on cooperation in dealing with Arctic contaminants - 

 the Agreement between the Government of the United States of 

 America and the Government of the Russian Federation on 

 Cooperation in the Prevention of Pollution of the Environment in 

 the Arctic. The agreement emerged from the Gore-Chernomyrdin 

 process. Fully implementing that Agreement will take time. 

 While the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy remains the 

 main forum for multilateral cooperation, this Agreement should 

 help ensure access to a bilateral forum and to raise the profile 

 of work already being done. 



