US embassy cable - 04YEREVAN1192

UNCLAS YEREVAN 001192 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EUR/CACEN; NP/ECC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: TRGY, KNNP, AM, IAEA 
SUBJECT:  ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO DEMARCHE TO U.S. 
IAEA ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL 
 
Ref: State 81669 
 
1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
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DEMARCHE DELIVERED 
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2. (SBU) On May 4, we presented talking points per reftel 
regarding the U.S. Senate approval of the US-IAEA Additional 
protocol.  Ashot Martirosyan, Head of the Armenian Nuclear 
Regulatory Agency (ANRA) officially received the demarche. 
Martirosyan acknowledged the U.S. Senate approval and stated 
that the Armenian Parliament was scheduled to ratify the 
IAEA additional protocol in June or July of 2004. 
 
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CURRENT STATUS OF ANRA 
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3. (SBU) Martirosyan told us that the ANRA was down to 16 
employees, explaining that this was due to low salaries, 
(about USD 100 to 150), Armenian language requirements, and 
restrictive Armenian civil service hiring procedures. 
Martirosyan told us that the lack of adequate staff would 
make it difficult for ANRA to effectively oversee the 
Armenian Nuclear Power Plant and properly catalogue and 
license all of the radioactive sources in Armenia. 
 
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COMMENT 
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4. (SBU) It is obvious that ANRA as a regulatory body will 
have serious difficulties in the near future regulating the 
nuclear power plant and the several hundred other 
radioactive sources in Armenia.  ANRA will also likely 
continue to lose specialists due to the low salaries and 
fail to attract new ones because of bureaucratic hiring 
difficulties. 
ORDWAY