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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]
Please see the links below for additional information.
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