[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 39 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Page 1894]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Joint Announcement on Environmental Protection in the Arctic

September 28, 1994

    President William Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin announced at 
their summit meeting on September 27 and 28, 1994, that cooperation in 
the resolution of the problems of processing and storage of Russian 
liquid radioactive wastes in the North of Russia is considered by both 
sides as an important component of more effective protection for the 
environmental quality and natural resources of the Arctic.
    The Russian Federation and the United States of America confirm 
their readiness to cooperate in consistently preventing dumping of 
liquid radioactive wastes, in accordance with the London Convention, and 
to proceed to a solution of the problem of Arctic pollution from all 
sources. To this end, the Russian Federation and the United States of 
American agree to undertake immediately, in cooperation with other 
interested countries, a step-by-step expansion and upgrading of a 
treatment facility for liquid low-level radioactive waste in Murmansk. 
Both sides hope that a speedy implementation of this project, which is 
in the interests of all states of the region, will become the focal 
point of efforts to create the infrastructure for ecologically safe 
processing and storage of liquid low-level radioactive wastes in the 
North of Russia. At the same time, Russia intends to continue its 
present policy of voluntary commitment to the prohibition on dumping 
liquid radioactive wastes under the London Convention with a view to 
eventual formal adherence to the prohibition.

Note: An original was not available for verification of the content of 
this statement.