The area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is one of the places being looked at as potential locations for Ukraine's planned future wave of small modular reactors.
The next phase of the project has begun to study which parts of the shelter built rapidly around Chernobyl's unit 4 after the 1986 accident need immediate dismantling and which bits need stabilisation.
President Alexander Lukashenko told International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi that Belarus would not "in our worst nightmare" seize Chernobyl and then be answerable for it.