Soviets OK Inspection of 2 Nuclear Plants

The State Department today confirmed that the Soviet Union has agreed to open two of its nuclear power reactors to public inspection and said the Administration is “very pleased.”

Spokesman Bernard Kalb read a statement to reporters saying the Kremlin has agreed to allow the inspections by the Paris-based International Atomic Energy Agency later this month. It would be the first time the Soviets have allowed impartial outside inspection of any of their nuclear facilities.

Kalb noted the Kremlin’s agreement to allow on-site inspections “applies only to facilities that the Soviet Union chooses, and, at least at present, at the least sensitive type of Soviet facilities.”

He added, however, “Certainly we are very pleased.”

Kalb noted that the Soviets accepted the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, “but that agreement has not entered into force.

“Therefore, the unilateral acceptance by the U.S.S.R. of ‘on-site’ inspection in the Soviet Union in its safeguards with the IAEA is an important step,” he said.

The Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty and the Threshold Test Ban Treaty would limit the magnitude of underground nuclear tests by both superpowers to 150 kilotons. The agreements were signed by Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter and by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The Reagan Administration has declined to submit them to the Senate for ratification, however, and they are not in force.