The British Prime Minster, Mr Tony Blair, has defended the decision not to advise the public about plans to fly highly-enriched uranium from a nuclear reactor in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to the nuclear plant at Dounreay in Scotland.
The plan to transport the uranium on board a US aircraft was leaked in a report in the New York Times this week. However, dismissing accusations that the Government was involved in a "secret deal," Mr Blair insisted that details of the flight could not be released in advance for security reasons.
Speaking in the Commons during Question Time, Mr Blair said that in agreeing to store the uranium Britain was demonstrating its commitment to the non-nuclear proliferation regime and that if the uranium had fallen into the wrong hands it could have been used by terrorist groups to manufacture a nuclear bomb.
The consignment of 5 kg of fresh and spent highly-enriched uranium fuel from a civil research reactor at Tblisi, in Georgia, was not a large amount when considered alongside the 40,000 drums of nuclear material already stored at Dounreay.
"The US has taken 350 kg of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan, and Russia has taken some 137 kg from Iraq since the Gulf War," Mr Blair said. Responding to an emergency question on the issue, the Foreign Office Minister, Mr Doug Henderson, told MPs that notification of the transfer of the uranium in advance was prohibited under international guidelines and that the Commons would be advised when the uranium arrived at Dounreay. However, the Tories accused the government of complacency about the "widespread concern" generated over the issue. A Tory MP, Mr Gary Streeter, told Mr Henderson that it was not simply concern over the uranium that mattered but "the cloak-and-dagger way in which this was done and the underhand way it has come to light."
A spokesman for the anti-nuclear group, Scottish CND, said the government had disregarded the views of the people of Scotland.
Meanwhile, Downing Street attempted a damage-limitation exercise in the row when it insisted that the US government had approached the British government in August 1997 but it had only agreed in February this year.