Advanced Search

Abstract:
 
On 29 June 2002 Interfax published an interview with Valter Kashiya, referred to as the director of the Sukhumi Physics and Technology Institute now located in Tbilisi, Georgia. [Probably a reference to the I.N. Vekua Physics and Technology Institute.] Interfax cited him as saying that one of the institute laboratories he directed had 655 grams of highly enriched uranium before the institute was evacuated from Sukhumi because of the Abkhaz-Georgian armed conflict in 1992-1993. He added that there were about 40 laboratories (four laboratories, according to Utro.ru [3]) in the Sukhumi institute and he cannot rule out that the total amount of HEU stored at Sukhumi was "a couple of kilograms." (For the additional information on the missing HEU from the Sukhumi institute, see abstract 19980500). According to Interfax, Kashiya suggested that "the enriched uranium and other radioactive substances and materials from the institute might have been sold to terrorist organizations or Iraq." This statement differs from what Kashiya said in a May 2001 interview, when he claimed that the missing uranium had been recovered in Poland (see abstract 20010350). On 7 July 2002, the Abkhazian news agency Apsnypress published a statement by Anatoliy Markoliya, described as the current director of the Sukhumi Physics and Technology Institute. He denied Kashiya's statement about the possible sale of HEU stored in Abkhazia to terrorist organizations or Iraq.[1] Markoliya says that "there is no uranium on the territory of Abkhazia and radioactive materials in burial sites do not pose any threat."[1] He insists that "Abkhazia never sold or plans to sell any radioactive waste." Markoliya also claimed that Kashiya is not trustworthy.[1]

A 26 June 2002 report by Associated Press (AP) says that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, almost all Russian scientists left the Sukhumi institute.[2] The remaining 200 scientists and technicians fled to Tbilisi in 1993 when the armed conflict in Abkhazia began. The report refers to Valter Kashiya as "head of Sukhumi institute-in-exile in Tbilisi." According to Kenji Murakami, director of the IAEA safeguards division, in May 2001, an IAEA mission finally was allowed to visit the Sukhumi facility, but it found no HEU there.[2] The mission was focused on inspecting the security of cesium and other radioactive materials at the Sukhumi facility and did not have the necessary time, expertise, or legal authority to do further investigation. The IAEA mission had no access to the uranium enrichment equipment that might have been left at Sukhumi either. In the 1940s and 1950s, scientists at the Sukhumi institute developed gaseous-diffusion and gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment technologies, and some enrichment experiments were conducted there until the 1993 evacuation. The exact inventory of equipment and materials once stored at the institute are unknown to the IAEA.[2]

[1] "Abkhazia nikomu ne prodavala otkhody," Apsnypress, reprinted by Kavkazskiy uzel, 2 July 2002; in Intergrum techno, http://www.integrum.ru.
[2] Charles J. Hanley, "Bomb Material Missing from Tbilisi," AP Online, 26 June 2002; in Northernlight Library, http://library.northernlight.com.
[3] "S sekretnogo sklada voruyut uran," Utro.ru, http://www.utro.ru, 8 July 2002.