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Georgia: Country Overview
This is an archived page. Please visit the new Georgia country profile
Georgia: Overview

 
             
Map of
Georgian
facilities
  Political
Map of
Georgia

Georgia is home to three nuclear research institutes.  The Andronikashvili Institute of Physics in Tbilisi houses a nonoperational IRT-M research reactor.  All fresh and spent fuel was transferred from the reactor facility to Scotland in April 1998 under a multinational effort known as Operation Auburn Endeavor.  The High Energy Physics Institute in Tbilisi is not known to house fissile material.  The Sukhumi I. Vekua Institute of Physics & Technology (SIPT) was relocated from Sukhumi to Tbilisi due to the Abkhazian conflict.  There are reports that SIPT once housed isotope production reactors and/or 2kg of 90% enriched uranium, though the whereabouts of the HEU is not known.[1,2]

Nonproliferation issues concerning Georgia stem primarily from the area of export controls.  Georgia may be attractive as a transshipment point for controlled commodities, largely because of continuing internal instability and the fact that about a third of Georgia's 310km coastline on the Black Sea is controlled by the Republic of Abkhazia.  Georgia does not produce nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, but the country's industrial and medical sectors use components that could also be used in WMD systems.[3]  

Georgia inherited a number of former Soviet military bases contaminated with radioactive waste.  In December 1997, Georgian soldiers became ill after being exposed to abandoned cesium-137 at the Lilo military base.

Georgia is a signatory to both the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  In addition, on 6 June 2003, Georgia ratified the Additional Protocol to the NPT.[4]
Sources:
[1] NISNP Discussion with Georgian Officials, June 1997.
[2] William C. Potter, "A US NGO Perspective on US-Russian MPC&A Cooperation," paper prepared for the 39th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Naples, Florida, 26-30 July 1998. 
[3] NTV, 8 December 1999; in "Sistema eksportnogo kontrolya za obychnym vooruzheniyem, a takzhe za produktsiyey i tekhnologiyami dvoynogo naznacheniya formiruyetsya v Gruzii," UNIAN, No. 049 (084), 6-12 December 1999.{Entered 3/6/01 KB}
[4] "UN Nuclear Watchdog, Georgia sign non-proliferation agreement," UN News Center, 6 June 2003, www.un.org/apps/news. {Entered 6/18/03 AE}

Please see the links below for additional information.

Map of Georgia
Georgia:  Research Reactor Table
Georgia:  Fissile Material Table
Andronikashvili Institute of Physics
High Energy Physics Institute
Sukhumi I. Vekua Institute of Physics and Technology (SIPT)
Operation Auburn Endeavor
Georgia:  Radioactive Waste Developments
Georgia:  Export Control System
Georgia:  Export Control Developments
International Treaty and Organization Tables
Georgia:  Full-Text Documents


Comments or questions? Contact Kenley Butler at MIIS CNS: Kenley.Butler@miis.edu

 

CNSThis material is produced independently for NTI by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2002 by MIIS.

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