Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said yesterday the Chernobyl power plant, scene of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in 1986, would be closed down on December 15th.
"The Chernobyl nuclear reactor will be decommissioned on December 15th this year," he said after meeting President Clinton in the presidential palace.
Mr Clinton, on a six-hour visit to the former Soviet republic, welcomed the news and said the US would give Ukraine $78 million in fresh funds to help improve safety at the plant, 110 km north of Kiev.
"I am very proud and moved to be here today, this is World Environment Day, for this historic announcement by President Kuchma," Mr Clinton said.
"This is a hopeful moment, it is also a moment when we remember those who suffered as a result of the accident there."
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia still spend huge sums cleaning up the aftermath of the fire and explosion that spewed radioactivity across Europe and contaminated large areas.
The blast killed 31 people outright and is held responsible for thousands of deaths since. Thousands more have had their health affected.
Ukraine had promised the G7 group of leading industrialised nations it would shut down the plant's sole remaining working reactor by the end of the year if they provided financial help, but delayed setting a firm date.
The government is also pushing the international community to help fund completion of two reactors at other plants in Ukraine to replace lost generating capacity.
Mr Kuchma said Mr Clinton had undertaken to ask the G7 for assistance in meeting costs.
Analysts said further financial support from Washington and other Western governments was crucial for Ukraine to meet the deadline.
"Even though the date has been named, if no support is forthcoming then the country may well fail to deliver on that date," said Mr Olexander Pavlyuk, head of the East-West Institute.
The Kievskiye Novosti daily newspaper was sceptical Mr Clinton could make a fundamental difference in resolving the long-running problem.
"Let us hope that tomorrow he [Clinton] has not already forgotten about Chernobyl, leaving Ukraine alone to deal with its problems," it said.
Mr Clinton said the US would give Ukraine a further $2 million to improve safety at its four other nuclear plants.
The two countries also signed an agreement on a $30 million project helping Ukraine to assess the technical performance of nuclear fuels from potential suppliers. Ukraine could save tens of millions of dollars in nuclear fuel costs as a result of the scheme, a White House statement said.
The US Supreme Court cleared the way yesterday for the operators of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to face lawsuits from 1,990 people who say that they were harmed by radiation from the US's worst nuclear accident in 1979.
The accident occurred south of Harrisburg in the early hours of March 28th, 1979, when a stuck relief valve in TMI's Unit-2 reactor released radioactive water as steam.
Plant operators then mistakenly shut off cooling water for the 150-ton reactor core, prompting a partial meltdown and the evacuation of 140,000 people.