The Ukrainian government said yesterday it will delay closing the Chernobyl nuclear power station if the Group of Seven industrialized countries fails to find cash for two new reactors. Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in 1986. Ukraine promised the G7 in 1995 it would shut the station's only working reactor by 2000. But both sides are haggling over the sum Ukraine has demanded for the shutdown and a further US$1.2 billion it wants for two new reactors at the Rivne and Khmelnytsky plants. "We will only be able to complete the reactors if the G7 countries take measures to fund it,"the government said. "Otherwise the date of Chernobyl's closure will inevitably be delayed," it said. Western diplomats said the continued use of the station's last functioning reactor as a bargaining chip for the new reactors amounts to "nuclear blackmail".

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