Russia ready to establish nuclear fuel bank

 Responsible use of nuclear energy is the focus of a two-day meeting in Paris of representatives of nuclear and the so-called "threshold" countries.

Iran and North Korea, whose nuclear programs are a source of serious international concern, have not been invited to the Paris conference whose hosts say that peaceful nuclear energy should be available to all countries provided, of course, that they stick to existing nonproliferation standards, nuclear and environmental safety.

The head of Russia's state-run nuclear power corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, proposed a principle of shared responsibility between providers and buyers of nuclear technology. If accepted, this would come as a welcome break from the existing "sell-and-forget" practice, which experts say leaves the door open to the potential use of imported nuclear materials for military purposes - a dangerous possibility Sergei Kiriyenko's proposal tries to address.

Russia earlier proposed to provide, already before this year is out, the first batch of low-enriched uranium for an IAEA-supervised nuclear bank currently being established in Angarsk, some 5,000 kilometers east of Moscow, to enable IAEA member countries, including Iran, to develop civilian nuclear power without having to enrich their own uranium.