Agence France-Presse,
Tokyo: Japan plans to provide financial support worth tens of millions of dollars for a project to dismantle decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The support will be announced in late November when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin are to hold a summit in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting unnamed government sources.
Under the plan, Japan will help Russia dismantle five of its 40 decommissioned nuclear submarines abandoned in the Russian Far East, the mass-circulation daily said.
The dismantling of the submarines may begin as early as this year, at an estimated cost of several billion yen (tens of millions of dollars), the newspaper said.
The Japanese government will finance the project through a contribution to a fund for an international committee charged with dismantling Russian nuclear weapons.
The Japanese and Russian governments need to discuss Tokyo's role in the project as it will include dismantling nuclear reactors classified as confidential Russian military equipment, Yomiuri said.
Decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines are aging, and experts fear that they may suffer radiation leaks. In 1993, spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear submarine leaked into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.
