This was what deputy prime minister Ilya Klebanov said yesterday. The project of raising the first compartment of the NPS will be approved in mid-January 2002. The preliminary project of raising the compartment and the corresponding technical and economic basing were considered at a special government meeting of December 22. Ilya Klebanov also said that the issue of involvement of foreign experts and firms in the operation would most probably be solved in January. However, in his words, specialists of Russia's Navy will assume the major assignment of work on raising the first compartment of the NPS Kursk.