Congo Brazzaville and Rwanda partner with Russia for nuclear science and atomic energy
Russia and Congo have signed the intergovernmental agreement of the cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. It was signed during an official visit of President of the Republic of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso to Moscow.
The signing of the Agreement greenlights the start of an active nuclear dialogue between Moscow and Brazzaville. It will allow implementing specific cooperation projects over a wide range of directions, including creation and improvement of nuclear infrastructure; production of radioisotopes to be used in industry, nuclear medicine and agriculture; education, training and retraining of specialists for nuclear industry. The document was signed by the Director General of ROSATOM Aleksey Likhachev and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Congolese Nationals Abroad of the Republic of Congo Jean-Claude Gakosso.
The signing follows the Roadmap for 2019-2021 that plans joint activities aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy, studying opportunities for creating Center for nuclear science and technology on the territory of the Republic and laying foundations for training personnel for and raising public awareness about atomic energy. The roadmap was signed in April 2019 within the framework of the XI International Forum ATOMEXPO 2019 in Sochi, Russia. The first document that laid the foundation for the bilateral dialogue between two countries was the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy, signed in February 2018 in Moscow, Russia. It planned to start developing approaches to constructing such facilities as a Center for Nuclear Science and Technology with Russian-designed research reactor at its core on the territory of the Republic of Congo.
Also, Rwanda and Russia made the next step in its cooperation, having signed a Russian-Rwanda Roadmap on cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy was signed in May 2019 in Moscow. The document defines specific measures until the end of this year which relate to the start of the project to build the Nuclear Science and Technology Center based on a Russian-design research reactor in Rwanda. The Rwanda staff training in Russia is separately stated as key task. From ROSATOM the document was signed by Deputy Director General of ROSATOM Nikolai Spasskiy and from the Ministry of the Republic of Rwanda and Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Rwanda to the Russian Federation Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya. Previously, an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in nuclear was signed in December 2018 in Moscow and 2 memoranda, on education and personnel training in the field of nuclear energy in Rwanda and on the formation of the positive public opinion on nuclear energy in the country, both signed in February 2019 in Kigali. Russian-Rwandan cooperation started a year ago, when a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy was signed in June 2018 in Moscow.