VIENNA. Sept 29 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's Rosatom state corporation expects that the International Uranium Enrichment Center, created together with Kazakhstan in Angarsk, will get all licenses and permissions for its work by the year's end, Rosatom Director Sergei Kiriyenko told a general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Monday.
"We expect that the International Center will obtain every necessary permission and license to begin working as a supplier of commodities and services by the end of 2008," Kiriyenko said.
"The center is open for other countries without any political conditions," he said. The Armenian and Ukrainian governments have already made a decision to join this initiative, and their membership in the center is being formalized, he said.
The IAEA was officially informed in January 2008 that the center was included on the list of Russian nuclear enterprises at which IAEA guarantees can be used.
The enrichment center is designed to be an element in the system of guaranteed provision of nuclear fuel services in the world, Kiriyenko said. "We are ready to work with all parties concerned on specifying and merging initiatives in the area of multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle where this is possible and can be done," Kiriyenko said.