Georgia Says It Foiled Enriched Uranium Smuggling
A Russian man arrested in Georgia last January in Tbilisi was carrying about 100 grams of uranium enriched by more than 90% that was smuggled from Russia?s North Ossetian republic via breakaway South Ossetia, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said in separate interviews to the New York Times and the Associated Press on January 24.
Merabishvili, who was visiting the U.S. this week, said that Russia refused to offer any assistance despite Tbilisi?s request for cooperation in the uranium smuggling case.
“We were ready to provide all the information, but unfortunately no one arrived from Russia, not even to interview this person? It is surprising because it is in Russian interests to secure these materials. There are terrorist organizations in Russia who would pay huge amounts of money for this,” the AP quoted Merabishvili.
The material seized by the Georgian law enforcers was tested by the U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
“The material was analyzed by agency nuclear experts and confirmed to be highly enriched uranium,” Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the agency, told the AP.
The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna will reportedly make the first official announcement with details about the case on January 26.
The New York Times reported that the material was seized after a Georgian undercover agent in South Ossetia posing as a rich foreign buyer made contact with the Russian seller in North Ossetia.
The smuggler was identified as Oleg Khinsagov who, according to the report, was arrested in Tbilisi and subsequently sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
John Tefft, the U.S. Ambassador to Tbilisi, told the New York Times that the uranium seizure, ?highlights how smuggling and loose border control, associated with Georgia?s separatist conflicts,? pose a threat ?not just to Georgia but to all the international community.?
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