YEREVAN. - The agreement on the exchange of information regarding the nuclear energy with the CIS countries helps to better apply the post-Fukushima criterion for the security of Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).

Deputy Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia, Areg Galstyan, told the aforementioned to journalists on Wednesday at the session of the CIS Commission on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy.

''Together we discuss the new requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the normative and technical basis for nuclear power plants. They have become much stricter after Fukushima,'' the Deputy Minister said.

The cooperation also includes preparation of specialists. Russia remains the main center of experience and knowledge of nuclear energy in CIS, although a number of other countries support their own projects or launch new ones.  For instance, Belarus is constructing its own NPP, while Kazakhstan has its own tokamak for tests with thermonuclear fusion. 

Armenia has also got good research specialists at Armatom Institute. The institute is small but it is known abroad and even fulfils foreign orders, Galstyan noted.

''But overall, we mainly strive for the level of Rosatom. It very much helps all of us in CIS. Rosatom's basic university – Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) - helps us prepare specialists. It has high-level specialists and a wonderful basis for preparing new ones. We don't have such a basis.  This year we sent four specialists there. Of course, this isn't a big number, but we orientate on the demands of our sectorial organizations,'' Galstyan stressed.

Apart from this, Regional Nuclear Security Training Center operates in the National Polytechnic University of Armenia with the U.S. support. The students there have an opportunity to follow online the research carried out by the partner university in US, the Deputy Minister said.