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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release September 28, 1994

                  JOINT U.S.-RUSSIAN ANNOUNCEMENT
             ON ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN THE ARCTIC

President William Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin announced at their summit meeting on September 27 and 28, 1994, that cooperation in the resolution of the problems of processing and storage of Russian liquid radioactive wastes in the North of Russia is considered by both sides as an important component of more effective protection for the environmental quality and natural resources of the Arctic.

The Russian Federation and the United States of America confirm their readiness to cooperate in consistently preventing dumping of liquid radioactive wastes, in accordance with the London Convention, and to proceed to a solution of the problem of Arctic pollution from all sources. To this end, the Russian Federation and the United States of America agree to undertake immediately, in cooperation with other interested countries, a step-by-step expansion and upgrading of a treatment facility for liquid low-level radioactive waste in Murmansk. Both sides hope that a speedy implementation of this project, which is in the interests of all states of the region, will become the focal point of efforts to create the infrastructure for ecologically safe processing and storage of liquid low- level radioactive wastes in the North of Russia. At the same time, Russia intends to continue its present policy of voluntary commitment to the prohibition on dumping liquid radioactive wastes under the London Convention with a view to eventual formal adherence to the prohibition.

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