Republic

Recovery of contaminated regions is top-priority task, President says

KOMARIN, April 25 (BelTA) – The recovery of the contaminated regions is becoming a top-priority task, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said when visiting the town of Komarin, Bragin region on April 25. “We should put an end to the period of clean-up efforts on the territories affected by the Chernobyl disaster. We should stop suffering and complaining, we need to start a new period, a period of recovery. We need to take maximum efforts to revive this land,” the head of state said. According to the President, financing of all Chernobyl recovery programmes will be a priority. Number one issue is the safety of citizens. “There is no rush here. If we see that these lands cannot be recovered, then we will not do it,” he said. “But I hope that you, together with the people, will decide on the spot what land plots should be put to agricultural use,” the Belarusian leader added. He also urged to toughen control over the safety of foodstuffs made in these regions. Alexander Lukashenko also informed that in autumn he is going to give the assessment of the work of the regions which were affected by the Chernobyl disaster 23 years ago. An increased number of people came to the region last year. The majority of the arrivers were young people under 30. And this is a good indicator that these territories should be revived, the President believes. “It was painful to see burnt fields, once perfectly meliorated, abandoned villages, and well-farmed fields several kilometres away. This all, mixed together, created an unpleasant impression. Now we have approached to the issue of what to do with the villages once destroyed. I am not going to assess whether it was right to do so. We will see,” Alexander Lukashenko said. At the same time he stressed: “We need to restore this territory, we need to take every effort to do it. If we see that the radiological situation is normal in the region which was once abandoned, we will start developing it, provide gas services, build roads and water pipelines, launch housing construction there”. “We will finance any recovery project. But I stress: we should not hurry, we need to be sure how and where it is better to do it,” the President concluded.

БЕЛТА