Creating the International Agency for Emergencies (IAE) is a priority for Russia’s Ministry for Emergencies in 2002. This was said by the Ministry’s deputy head Mr. Yuri Brazhnikov. According to him, negotiations on the topic have already taken place in the UN directorate for coordination of humanitarian relief operations in Geneva. “Our partners seem to have come to the understanding of the need to create such an agency”, Brazhnikov said, “and this is a very important point”. This year, he said, the Ministry will continue to push forward this issue with its counterparts in Switzerland. Plans call for establishing an association to support the idea to found IAE. “In our view this structure should be very flexible and adaptable for quick reaction to large emergency situations in a global scale”, Brazhnikov said. He further said that one of the main tasks for the agency would be to lend the high technologies in countering the emergency situations to those countries that will feel a need of such technologies. An example of such high technologies is the Beriev Be-200 twinjet multi-role amphibian aircraft. Developed by Beriev Aircraft Company under the Ministry’s order, the aircraft is entering the market for the international humanitarian relief services. The aircraft is manufactured by IRKUT Corp. “The proposed agency”, Brazhnikov said, “will be using this amphibian aircraft in operations on extinguishing wooden fires on request from the suffering countries”. The Ministry’s deputy head described the Be-200 as the state-of-the-art machine with no equals elsewhere, and said the Ministry will provide every support to its introduction into service.