NATO’s Information Officer and Coordinator for Central Asia, Yeter Yaman-Naucodie has said that the alliance is to build a factory in the Aktash region, in Samarkand province to deactivate nuclear fuel waste, an IRIB correspondent reported on Wednesday.

She added some $1 million will be invested in the project and it is expected to be completed by September, 2008.

The facilities are to be used to deactivate radioactive fuel waste from space rockets, under an agreement between NATO and Uzbekistan.

The announcement was made during a security conference held in Tashkent earlier this month.

Uzbekistan’s Fergana valley could be on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe following the leak in the container of nuclear waste buried in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

Also in 1958, some 6,000 cubic meters of radioactive material were released into the environment after a dam burst in the Mailuu-suu valley.

Tectonic tremors triggered several landslides in the 90s, further weakening the dumping sites and leading to more toxic waste leaks.