Tuesday, February 13, 1996

   MINSK, Belarus (Reuter) - Belarus, the country worst hit by the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Tuesday put a $235 billion price tag on
dealing with its aftermath and Ukraine demanded faster action from the
West to close the stricken power plant.
   Belarus's Chernobyl minister said foreign aid since the 1986
catastrophe provided a tiny fraction of what was needed to clean up
huge stretches of contaminated forests, resettle thousands of people
and tackle health problems.
   "International cooperation started here only in 1990 and although
we have obtained large sums of money it is not enough," Ivan Kenik
told a news conference devoted to government plans ahead of the 10th
anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident.
   "The new estimate for the total damages from the Chernobyl
catastrophe from 1986 to 2015 is put at $235 billion -- that's 21
times the size of our 1991 national budget.  And this is by no means a
final estimate."
   But Kenik dismissed as pointless plans by some legislators to sue
Russia -- as the legal successor of the Soviet Union -- for damage
caused by the fire and explosion at the Chernobyl power plant just
over the border in Ukraine.
   In Kiev, Environment Minister Yuri Kostenko said Ukraine would be
unable to close the station by the year 2000 unless the West
simplified procedures for extending financial aid.
   Western attention, he said, had faded since Ukraine and the Group
of Seven rich countries signed a memorandum in December envisaging
$2.3 billion in loans and grants to shut down two reactors still
functioning at the station.
   The document sets the year 2000 as an optimal goal but is not
binding.
   "We've signed the memorandum, but the existing procedures for
issuing credits and grants are so complex that if we comply with them
. . . we will be unable to close Chernobyl by the year 2000," said
Kostenko, Kiev's top negotiator on Chernobyl.
   Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma intended to lobby Western leaders
to speed up the process at an April G7 summit on nuclear safety to be
held in Moscow on the eve of the anniversary, he said.
   Kuchma also plans to raise the issue with President Clinton during
talks in Washington next week.
   "We need conclusively to dot the i's and cross the t's on
Chernobyl," a spokesman quoted Kuchma as telling U.S. Ambassador
William Miller.
   The Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, sent a cloud of radiation
over much of Europe and thousands of people have since died.  Kuchma
agreed to close the station under heavy pressure from the West, which
considers the facility unsafe.
   But Ukraine and Belarus, struggling to keep their post-Soviet
economies above water, have complained that help from the
international community is inadequate.
   Ukraine estimates the cost of closing Chernobyl at about $4 billion
-- including finding sources of energy to make up for the power
generated by the plant and replacing the crumbling "tomb" covering the
station's ruined fourth reactor.
   Both countries say they spend up to 10 percent of their annual
budgets on dealing with the accident's consequences.