The Nuclear Threat Initiative has announced that it will give $50 million to the International Atomic Energy Agency to help create a nuclear fuel bank for nations deciding not to build indigenous nuclear fuel cycle capabilities.
The goal of the proposed initiative, which has financial backing from American entrepreneur Warren Buffett, is to help make fuel supplies from the international market more secure by offering customer states that are in full compliance with their non-proliferation obligations, reliable access to a nuclear fuel reserve under impartial IAEA control in case their supply arrangements be disrupted.
IAEA Director General Mohamed El Baradei said the generous pledge by NTI, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, will jumpstart the nuclear fuel bank initiative.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative hasĀ Nobel laureate Professor Amartya SenĀ among its international board of directors.
'It will provide urgent impetus to our efforts to establish mechanisms for non-discriminatory, non-political assurances of supply of fuel power plants," El Baradei said, reacting to the announcement made by NTI on Tuesday at a special meeting of IAEA.
NTI co-chairman Sam Nunn said a country's decision to rely on imported fuel, rather than to develop an indigenous enrichment capacity may be based on one point -- whether or not there is a mechanism that guarantees an assured international supply of nuclear fuel on a non-discriminatory, non-political basis to states that are meeting their non-proliferation
Coverage: Indo-US Nuclear Tango