"We have no problem with sending the nuclear waste and uranium waste to other countries," Mr. Khatami said.

Later, he flew here to announce that the federal government was preparing to remove 10.6 tons of uranium waste from an abandoned mine site.

In court documents filed last month, Government officials acknowledged that they knew for decades the plant was releasing radioactive uranium waste into the environment.

Officials said that the tank, containing a solution of uranium wastes, exploded in an empty storage area.

No one knows how many Soviet-era repositories of uranium waste and toxic chemicals are scattered throughout Kyrgyzstan.

The biggest environmental problem, though, would stay in Government hands after the privatization: 1.25 billion pounds of uranium waste, which could cost $10 billion to put into stable form.

Youtube video Bellona activists measure radioactivity, protest near barrels of uranium waste, in St Petersburg.

She said she remembers playing on piles of sandlike uranium waste, carrying around the raw ore and swimming in contaminated water that pooled after desert rains.

Mining waste; phosphate rock mining, beneficiation, and processing waste; and uranium waste are three of the six special wastes identified.

The bill would establish a $1 billion fund to clean up or stabilize large, mildly radioactive piles of uranium waste at 26 sites in 7 Western states.