KIEV, Ukraine - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Friday that his country should produce its own nuclear fuel for power plants, part of the West-leaning leader's effort to reduce its reliance on Russia following a dispute over natural gas prices.
"We must change our uranium policy — our policy on the use of uranium for peaceful purposes," Yushchenko said on national television. "We must cooperate with international allies on a serious political and economic level so that we can have a full cycle of processing and production of nuclear fuel."...
...Ukraine is the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 explosion and fire at a reactor at the Chernobyl plant, which has been shut for good. Nearly two decades later, the nation of 47 million relies on four operating nuclear power plants for about half its electricity production — and it depends on Russia for fuel that feeds them.
Ukraine supplies Russia with raw uranium, then buys it back after enrichment; a full nuclear cycle means that Ukraine would be enriching uranium by itself. Uranium enrichment is a possible pathway to the development of nuclear arms, but Yushchenko insisted his country — a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog — had only peaceful intentions...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060114/ap_on_re_eu/ukraine_nuclear_energy