JINR Director-Designate Alexei Sissakian (center) attended the recent GDE meeting in Frascati.

"This is a very useful meeting.", Sissakian said. "JINR would like to become more involved with the ILC, and we have lots of experience with accelerators and detectors. All 18 member countries in our region would be involved, and we think this would be useful for the project."

While in Frascati, Sissakian had the opportunity to meet with GDE Director Barry Barish and the GDE civil site group. "We are interested in constructing the ILC in Dubna.", Sissakian said. "Of course, we are happy to collaborate where ever the ILC will be located. All of our efforts are in favor of future collaboration."

Sissakian emphasized his belief that the ILC holds a large stake in the future of particle physics. "We consider the project to be future of high energy physics.", he said. "From our point of view, it is the only possibility to make the next steps after the LHC-era. We will try to attract the attention of our government to point out the problems in high energy physics, and the ILC is a very good project to do this."

--Elizabeth Clements