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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation US, Russia Joint Statement on Return of Russian Research Reactor Fuel, and on joint venture in Russian closed nuclear city, November 5 & 7
U.S., Russia on Return of Russian Research Reactor Fuel'JOINT STATEMENT/SIGNING CEREMONY WITH RUSSIAN ATOMIC ENERGY MINISTER RUMYANTSEV,' Washington, D.C., November 7, 2003 REMARKS BY SECRETARY OF ENERGY SPENCER ABRAHAMI am extremely pleased to be here today with my colleague and friend, Minister Rumyantsev, as we take another important step forward in our cooperative efforts to reduce global stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear materials. The Joint Statement that we are signing today reaffirms our commitment to the common objective of reducing, and to the extent possible, ultimately eliminating the use of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in civil nuclear activity by returning to Russia all of the Russian origin HEU scattered throughout the countries of the Former Soviet Union. This Joint Statement commits us to develop a schedule by the end of the year for the completion of this program. Our two countries began developing this new program with the International Atomic Energy Agency in December 1999, when we first planned for the transfer of fresh and irradiated HEU currently stored at foreign research reactors back to the Russian Federation, where it originated. We are focusing our efforts on repatriating Russian-supplied fuel from more than 20 research reactors in 17 countries. Moreover, we plan to convert these targeted research reactors so that they use low-enriched uranium fuel instead of HEU. Our efforts are well under way. Just recently, in September 2003, Russia accepted approximately 14 kilograms of fresh Russian-origin HEU from Romania. The HEU was airlifted from the Vinca reactor in Serbia Montenegro to Russia where it will be down-blended and used for nuclear power plant fuel fabrication. This was the first effort of this kind to repatriate Russian-origin spent fuel back to Russia. We have nearly completed preparations for the next shipment of fresh HEU fuel from another country, as well as for our first shipment of spent HEU fuel from Uzbekistan to Russia. Our governments have completed negotiations on a bilateral agreement under which more then a dozen other countries will become eligible to ship their fresh and spent research reactor fuel to Russia for safe and secure disposition. I am delighted to report that this agreement will soon be finalized and signed. Furthermore, our governments intend to conduct bilateral consultations between MinAtom of Russia and the Department of Energy to develop a schedule for all remaining potential shipments of fresh and irradiated HEU fuel. The goal of minimizing international commerce in HEU has long been a pillar of U.S. nonproliferation policy. This program exemplifies the strength of the U.S-Russian Federation partnership to reduce the threat of terrorism and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, this program inaugurates an important initiative to close a major gap in previous efforts to consolidate HEU dispersed around the world. This latest advance in our efforts is the result of years of broad cooperation on a number of fronts to improve and accelerate our program to reduce global stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear materials. I would like to highlight just a few of the key accomplishments of our cooperative effort. - We have accelerated the timeline for completing the security upgrades for protecting weapons usable nuclear material in Russia from 2010 to 2008. - We have already secured nearly half this material, located at over 55 sites in Russia and the Newly Independent States. - We have secured 78 percent of the Russian Navy sites and we
are also securing at-risk warheads at 20 percent of the Russian
Strategic Rocket Forces sites. - We are shutting down Russia's last three reactors still producing plutonium, replacing those reactors with fossil fuel plants. - We called for and co-chaired a major international conference in Vienna earlier this year on improving the security of high-risk, undersecured radioactive sources throughout the world that could be usable in radiological dispersion devices (RDDs). The conference, attended by 140 nations, resulted in recommendations to secure these materials which are already underway. - We worked with G-8 members to establish the Global Partnership, proposed by President Bush,that is making available $20 billion for cooperative nonproliferation work with Russia. - We have downblended more than 200 metric tons of HEU from Russia's dismantled nuclear weapons for use in U.S. nuclear power plants - enough material for approximately 8,000 nuclear weapons. I look forward to our continued joint work on these important
endeavors. It is clear that we are building momentum for these
cooperative programs to eliminate the threat posed by weapons of
mass destruction on many fronts. The agreement we are about to sign
represents the latest important effort on these fronts. JOINT STATEMENT OF U.S. SECRETARY OF ENERGY SPENCER ABRAHAM AND MINISTER OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION FOR ATOMIC ENERGY ALEKSANDR RUMYANTSEV ON COOPERATION TO TRANSFER RUSSIAN-ORIGIN HIGH-ENRICHED URANIUM RESEARCH REACTOR FUEL TO THE RUSSIAN FEDERATIONThe U.S. Department of Energy and MinAtom of Russia recognize the great significance of cooperation in the issue of transferring high enriched uranium (HEU) research reactor fuel of Russian origin to the Russian Federation as a mutual contribution to the reduction of global stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear materials and, therefore, to reducing the threat of international terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Such cooperation, which is being implemented with the active involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency, supports the objective of transferring to the Russian Federation fresh and spent HEU fuel from research reactors currently located in research centers of 17 foreign countries. An important component of this activity is the conversion of such research reactors from HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel when a suitable LEU fuel has been qualified. To this end, we are jointly developing LEU fuel. HEU can be directly used in manufacturing nuclear weapons. Our common objective consists of reducing, to the greatest extent possible, and, ultimately, eliminating the use of such materials in civilian nuclear activity. We have real examples of cooperation in this area. Two shipments of Russian-origin fresh HEU research reactor fuel to Russia have taken place. We have already started preparations for the next fresh HEU shipment. Preparations also are in progress for the transfer of spent HEU fuel from Uzbekistan to Russia. Completion of a bilateral Government-to-Government Agreement under which more than a dozen other countries will become eligible to ship their fresh and spent research reactor fuel to Russia for safe and secure disposition is in its final stages. It is expected that this Agreement will be signed shortly. By the end of the year, we intend to conduct bilateral consultations between MinAtom of Russia and the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a schedule for all remaining potential shipments of fresh and irradiated HEU fuel. Signed at Washington, DC, in duplicate, this 7th day of November, 2003, in the English and Russian languages. [signed] [signed] Transcript of Secretary Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Rumyantsev at announcement of Joint Statement on Fuel Return, November 12U.S., Russian Officials on Nuclear Fuel Repatriation Program, November 12. AMBASSADOR LINTON BROOKS: [Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration] Good morning and thank you for coming. This event is the fruition of many hours of close collaboration between the Department of Energy and our Russian counterparts. Shortly after September of 2001, it became apparent to Secretary Abraham and Minister Rumyantsev that cooperative nonproliferation would be an essential tool to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. And for two years, the two Ministers have made these programs a high priority. The payoffs have been considerable. For example, some programs have been advanced a full two years because of their leadership. One area where it has become apparent that more work is needed concerns highly enriched uranium at research reactors throughout the world. This material is vulnerable to threat of sabotage and could be tempting to terrorists. And the Statement of Intent being signed today brings us closer to reducing the global stockpile of easily available weapons-usable material. It's now my pleasure to introduce a man who is a scientist, a diplomat, and a partner, the Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, the Honorable Aleksandr Rumyantsev. MINISTER RUMYANTSEV [Interpreted from Russian]: Thank you very much, my dear friends, Secretary Abraham, the Ambassador. I'm very glad to have this opportunity to speak to you once again, and I had this chance last year. We've done a lot of useful activity together jointly with my friend, Secretary Abraham. In March this year, under the auspices of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], we held the international conference regarding the open(?) nuclear radioactive sources, and this international conference called the community, the world community, to pay more attention to such sources in order for proper handling and disposition of these sources. The view of nuclear reactors is also a very serious topic from the point of view of nuclear fissile material, accounting, control, and physical protection. Most of the research reactors really use the fuel, the material, which could be used by terrorists for their own purposes. Well, together with Department of Energy and under the auspices of the IAEA, we conducted the confidential operation with regard to removal of fresh fuel from research reactor in Vinca, which is located in Serbia Montenegro. Today we are going to make forward a very important step, and we are going to sign the joint statement regarding the irradiated fuel from research reactor, and this will be the basis for the signing of the government-to-government agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States. These types of reactors were constructed in the Eastern European countries and in CIS countries. Due to the political or economic reasons in these countries, they have to remove this material, and now we are looking into the future in order to prevent all the unexpected events regarding the involvement of these materials or the fact that such materials may be obtained by the terrorists. I do believe that the audience which is here is involved in the very sensitive area of activity. And I would like to wish you success, and I would like that the nuclear power will lead us only to the progress and not some tragic events against which we are partner for. Thank you very much for your attention. AMBASSADOR LINTON BROOKS: And now it's my pleasure to introduce a man who in the past three years has become a symbol both of strong support for nonproliferation and of the new relationship that the two Presidents are forging between the United States and the Russian Federation, Secretary of Energy, the Honorable Spencer Abraham. SECRETARY ABRAHAM: Thank you. First, I'm very pleased to be here today with my friend and colleague and partner, Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev, as we take another important step forward in our cooperative efforts to reduce global stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear materials. I want to just take one moment to express personal thanks to the people at MinAtom and the Department of Energy who work on these programs. To our Russian guests who are here today I say thank you. Please pass to your colleagues in MinAtom our appreciation for the extensive time and commitment and hard work that goes into these programs. And for our team here at the Department of Energy, both the folks who work here in Washington and our team in Moscow, Andrew and all of your team, I want to also say thanks for the hard work that went into this trip and all of the projects we work on. The accomplishments which Minister Rumyantsev and I are so proud of are ones that have been achieved because of your collective efforts. This is not easy work, but it's extremely important work. And we are grateful for your commitment to address these problems as successfully as you have. The joint statement which we are signing today reaffirms our commitment to the common objective of reducing and, to the extent possible, ultimately eliminating the use of highly enriched uranium in civil nuclear activity by returning to Russia all of Russian-origin HEU scattered throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union. This joint statement commits us to develop a schedule by the end of the year for the completion of this program. Our two countries began developing this new program with the IAEA in December 1999, when we first planned for the transfer of fresh and irradiated HEU currently stored at foreign research reactors back to the Russian Federation, where it originated. We are focusing our efforts on repatriating Russian-supplied fuel for more than 20 research reactors in 17 countries. Moreover, we plan to convert these targeted research reactors so that they use low-enriched uranium instead of HEU. Our efforts are well under way. Just recently, in September, Russia accepted approximately 14 kilograms of fresh Russian-origin HEU from Romania. And before that, as Minister Rumyantsev said, we successfully retrieved fuel from the Vinca reactor. We have nearly completed preparations for the next shipment of fresh HEU fuel from another country, as well as for our first shipment of spent HEU fuel from Uzbekistan to Russia. And our governments have completed negotiations on a bilateral agreement under which more than a dozen other countries will become eligible to ship their fresh and spent research reactor fuel to Russia for safe and secure disposition. I am delighted to report that this agreement will soon be finalized and signed, and our governments intend to conduct bilateral consultations between MinAtom and DOE to develop a schedule for all remaining potential shipments of fresh and irradiated HEU fuel. This goal of minimizing international commerce in HEU has long been a pillar of U.S. nonproliferation policy. And this program exemplifies the strength of the U.S.-Russian Federation partnership to reduce the threat of terrorism and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, this program inaugurates an important initiative to close a major gap in previous efforts to consolidate HEU dispersed around the world. This advance in our efforts is the result of recent years of broad cooperation on a number of fronts to improve and accelerate our program to reduce global stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear materials. I'd like to just highlight a few of the key accomplishments of this cooperative effort: We've accelerated the timeline for completing the security upgrades for protecting weapons-usable nuclear material in Russia from 2010 to 2008, two full years. We have already secured nearly half of this material located at over 55 sites in Russia and the Newly Independent States. We've secured 78 percent of the Russian Navy sites, and we are also securing at-risk warheads at 20 percent of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces sites. We have employed 13,000 former weapons scientists at 180 institutes across the former Soviet Union in non-military, commercial pursuits. The projects attracted $125 million in private sector matching contributions and $96 million in venture capital. We are shutting down Russia's last three reactors still producing plutonium, replacing those reactors with fossil fuel plants. As Minister Rumyantsev said, we called for and co-chaired a major international conference earlier this year in Vienna on improving the security of high-risk, undersecured radioactive sources throughout the world. These sources could be used for the development of radiological dispersal devices or dirty bombs, and the conference was attended by 140 nations and resulted in recommendations to secure those materials, which are already under way. And the list goes on and on and will continue to go on and on, because these programs are important and because we are committed to working together for their successful completion. I look forward to our continued joint work on these important endeavors. It is clear that we are building momentum for these cooperative programs to eliminate the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction on many fronts. And the agreement we are about to sign, if I ever finish this speech-- [Laughter.] SECRETARY ABRAHAM: --will be yet another step forward in that effort. Thank you all very much. SECRETARY ABRAHAM: We would be happy to take a couple of questions from the media who are here, but I'm not quite sure where, because of the lights, the press members are. So if there are any questions, I'll let Jeanne Lopatto maybe sort of stage-manage that effort. And if there aren't any questions, that's okay, too. MR. : I just want to be absolutely clear. This isn't the agreement itself governing the return of the fuel. It's an intention to sign that agreement and a statement that agreement will be signed. SECRETARY ABRAHAM: We already have been operating--as we both indicated, we've already been doing, on a case-by-case basis doing some of these projects. But our intent in giving the government-to-government agreement is to put in place a broader mechanism so that we can speed up that process and have a framework for moving a number of these programs ahead more quickly. MR. : Okay. So the case-by-case method that's been used in the past in Vinca and in Romania won't be necessary once this agreement is signed? SECRETARY ABRAHAM: Right. You know, that has at least allowed us to begin the process, but we think a government-to-government agreement allows us to move more quickly in the future and within an agreed-upon framework. And I think it will really allow us to do this work much quicker. MR. : [inaudible, off microphone]. What is the status [inaudible] financial arrangement? SECRETARY ABRAHAM: I think all of the components are pretty close to final agreement. There's obviously some additional interagency clearances that need to be accomplished to get concurrence on both sides from all of the relevant agencies that participate in or sign off on these agreements. MINISTER RUMYANTSEV [Interpreted from Russian]: As Secretary Abraham mentioned, we are trying to speed up our cooperation in this area. So today we signed a joint statement not to lose time and start the activity exactly in time. I do believe that this government-to-government agreement will be signed at the end of November or early December. [Question in Russian.] MINISTER RUMYANTSEV [Interpreted from Russian]: With regard to research reactor (?), it lies within several tenths of kilograms up to 100 kilograms. With regard to the fuel, it will be used for the nuclear power plants, and irradiated fuel, after (?) chemical reprocessing, will be involved in the electricity generation. The radioactive waste will be (?)-itrified and will be disposed of at specific sites, storage facilities. [Question in Russian.] THE INTERPRETER: I'll translate for everyone. Does this agreement mean that the states from territories of which this research reactor fuel will be removed will be denied the opportunity to do any research, whether it will be application type research or fundamental research in the nuclear area? MINISTER RUMYANTSEV [Interpreted from Russian]: Well, if there is a governmental decision to close nuclear centers, that is the case for Vinca nuclear center, then these nuclear centers will be closed, and from Vinca we'll move to fresh fuel and spent nuclear fuel. With regard to Uzbekistan fuel, we are going to remove the fuel which is stored in the storage facilities of the nuclear center, and this particular nuclear center in Uzbekistan will be involved in fundamental and applied research activity. We are trying to reduce the threat of proliferation and eliminate any possibility that such material could be obtained by the terrorists. SECRETARY ABRAHAM: I would just add that, first of all, the host governments are obviously involved in these programs, in these efforts. Second, they recognize the threat that exists as much as we do. Third, we're prepared to help supply them with alternative fueling source for their--of the less dangerous sort for the reactors. So we're not mandating that people go out of the research business, only that they do it in a way that's safer. And that varies from country to country. In some cases, the program is no longer an active one or a very active one, and the decision has been made not to continue the work. But the fuel remains dangerous and exposed. U.S., Russia Hail First Joint Venture in Closed Nuclear City'Energy Secretary Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Rumyantsev announce first ever US-Russian Business Venture in Closed Nuclear City,' November 5, 2003. REMARKS BY SECRETARY OF ENERGY SPENCER ABRAHAMIn my remarks a few moments ago I spoke of the tremendous importance of joint ventures between U.S. companies and the best scientific minds from the former Soviet Union's weapons complex. So it gives me great pleasure this morning to recognize another such groundbreaking joint venture. Numotech, Inc. - a company based in Northridge, California, that specializes in medical devices and wound care treatment - is entering into an historic agreement with the Russian industrial engineering and design firm Spektr Conversion to manufacture highly specialized medical devices. We have here one of the initial venture products- a wheelchair equipped with "active" seat and back cushions. These breakthrough cushion devices are designed to alleviate sustained pressure on any one part of the body, a painful and costly problem for wheelchair users. This joint venture is an unprecedented achievement. When fully realized, it will create over 400 permanent local jobs for scientists from the Soviet Union's weapons complex. This is, of course, very good news. What is particularly exciting is that, when finalized, it will be the first successful foreign venture in a Russian closed nuclear city - the closed city of Snezhinsk in the Ural Mountains. During the Cold War, C-70, as the city was then known, was vital to the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons program. During the coming years, we believe Snezhinsk will be a leader in the production and development of peaceful cutting-edge technologies with widespread commercial application and serve as an example for other scientists who seek an alternative to weapons work. This first foreign joint venture in any of the closed nuclear cities of Russia will represent yet another milestone in the Department of Energy's Russian Transition Initiatives program. To date this program has engaged nearly 15,000 weapons workers. Its successes have been critical to safeguarding vulnerable Russian nuclear expertise, facilities, and know-how. I want to commend a number of individuals, particularly my Minatom counterpart, Minister Alexander Rumyantsev; Terri Olascoaga, from Sandia National Laboratories; Michael Lempres, Vice President of Insurance of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; Vic Alessi of the United States Industry Coalition; Jarius DeWalt, of the M.R. Beal and Company Investment Banking firm; and, not least, Spektr-Conversion Director Anatoly Ivanov and Numotech President Dr. Robert Felton. Their cooperation and dedication in the face of numerous obstacles has resulted in today's historic agreement. This significant partnership gives us a blueprint for future collaboration between US companies and the talented scientists in the former Soviet Union I wish everyone success in this groundbreaking endeavor. Source: US State Department Washington File, http://usinfo.state.gov. © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |