MOSCOW, September 18 (AVN) - Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov refuted that the trip of the Russian divers to Norway to be trained for submergence down to the Kursk submarine was postponed due to financial reasons, the Military News Agency learned.
The group of divers will fly either to Norway or Scotland on Tuesday, Klebanov told reporters. The financial issues are not crucial here, he noted. The contract with the Norwegian Stolt Offshore company is really not signed because the financial issues were not solved yet, but the total sum necessary for the Kursk operation is being considered, he said. Klebanov also refused to point out the sum saying it was a commercial secret.
Currently the main issue for the state commission on the Kursk submarine disaster is to decide whether to recover bodies first and then to lift the submarine or to do it simultaneously in late summer - early autumn of 2001, Klebanov stressed.