London - A controversial shipment of nuclear material from Georgia arrived in Britain yesterday to be stored at a Scottish nuclear plant. The nuclear material, the subject of a secret deal between the US, Britain and the former Soviet republic, was transported by truck on a 100-mile journey to the remote Scottish plant at Dounreay, police said.
The cache - comprising four kg of highly enriched uranium and about one kg of spent nuclear fuel - arrived before dawn yesterday on a US transport aircraft at a British air force base in Scotland. The shipment is to be reprocessed at Dounreay under a deal aimed at keeping it from falling into the hands of rebels opposed to the Georgian government. The nuclear material had been stored at a research reactor outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
On Wednesday, the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, defended his decision to accept the shipment, saying Britain was joining international action to promote world security. British environmentalists have protested against the Labour government's decision.