ISLAMABAD -- A Ukrainian diplomat said in Islamabad Tuesday that nuclear power was safe but Chernobyl-like accidents should be avoided in the pursuit of nuclear energy.
"We remind all nations to be very careful," Charge D'affaires Volodymyr Ponomarenko said at a press conference to announce that Ukraine's disaster-struck Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be closed on December 15.
An accident in the Chernobyl plant in 1986 raised radiation levels in the area 800 times, polluted 54,000 square kilometers and affected 3.4 million people, including 1.3 million children.
"We hope mankind will avoid such catastrophe in the future," the Ukraine diplomat said.
Ponomarenko said developed countries provided Ukraine with $750 million to deal with the catastrophe at the plant in 1986 and to add new units to the remaining four nuclear power plants in the country.
Ukraine economy lost $400 million in closing down of the Chernobyl Plant.
"We can produce our own nuclear reactors," he said when asked if the aid givers provided the machinery for the new units.
Ukraine had the third largest nuclear weapons arsenal after the United States and Russia but opted to become a non-nuclear state after it gained independence in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Now the core of the weapons surrendered to Russia provide the fuel for four working nuclear power plants in Ukraine, he said.
(DPA)