MINSK. Aug 28 (Interfax) - The Belarusian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection has invited Rosatom to cooperate with the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve (the Belarusian exclusion zone of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant), the ministry's press service said on Wednesday.
"The possible cooperation areas include sharing experience and best practices to monitor environmental radioactivity and radioecological research in the areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear incident, and using remote sensing and artificial intelligence technologies to prevent and mitigate man-made emergencies," the statement issued following Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Minister Sergei Maslyak's meeting with Rosatom Deputy General Director Andrei Nikipelov said.
The talks addressed deeper cooperation in the design and construction of radioactive waste storage sites in Belarus and a joint project to protect the environment from pesticides, including by using decontamination technology and a pilot plant to operate at a closed waste storage site in Belarus.
The Polesie State Radioecological Reserve is the largest nature reserve in Belarus and the world's only radioecological reserve. It occupies an area of 215,000 hectares in three districts of the Gomel region that were worst affected by the Chernobyl nuclear incident - Bragin, Narovlya and Khoiniki. The reserve was established on July 18, 1988, in the Belarusian part of the Chernobyl NPP's exclusion zone. It includes 96 deserted towns, which had a total population of over 22,000 before the accident and evacuation in 1986.