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Disarmament DiplomacyIssue No. 11, December 1996Updated US-Russia agreement on uranium reprocessingAccording to a 24 November report in the Washington Post, the US and Russia have reached agreement on a plan dramatically curtailing - from 20 to 5 years - the schedule for the transfer of weapons-grade uranium from Russian nuclear warheads to the US, for subsequent use in civil reactors. According to the report, the new accord stipulates US purchase of 18 metric tonnes of uranium in 1997, 24 metric tonnes in 1998, and 30 metric tonnes in each of the next three years.According to Deputy Energy Secretary Charles Curtis, quoted in the report: "This agreement is of fundamental importance to our bilateral relations with the Russian Federation... What this indicates is that we have put this [issue] into a long-term, stable relationship that is commercially sustainable and obviously represents a significant national security value to the United States." Report: US and Russia work out agreement on nuclear materials - report, Agence France-Presse International News, 24 November. © 1999 The Acronym Institute. |