"Politically, we have to study this question," Yushchenko was quoted as saying after visiting the plant in the north of the country.

"Undoubtedly, there can be economic feasibility... so we have to think hard before making a political decision," Interfax quoted him as saying.

Chernobyl's number-four reactor, in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine, exploded on April 26, 1986, sending a radioactive cloud across Europe.

Following the disaster, a concrete sarcophagus was built over the stricken reactor and a new 20,000-tonne steel case to cover the whole plant is planned on being constructed between 2008 and 2009.

The power station was eventually shut down on December 15, 2000.

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