U.S. nuclear experts ran a series of radiation security seminars in the Kazakh capital, Almaty, on ways to handle incidents involving radiation materials.
Experts from Interpol, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy in cooperation with U.S. and Austrian national laboratories conducted the seminars that were attended by staff from institutes under Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Center and the nuclear industry.
"Monitoring of these goods is not a new idea. However, in my view, previously border guards or customs officials did not join their efforts to identify nuclear materials," said Christopher Walker, a foreign affairs specialist at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Border incidents have shown specialists have difficulty identifying some materials.
"There are over 1,500 items on this list, including nuclear materials, machine tools and equipment with digital program control as well as goods used in the making of weapons of mass destruction," said Yermek Smagulov, the head of the Kazakh Export Control Department at the Customs Control Committee.
"Of course, experts need to be able to identify them correctly."
The seminars, held during the first two week in June, were designed to train those in the nuclear industry on ways to handle radiation incidents, track down uncontrolled sources of ionizing radiation and identifying dual goods at border custom points.
