US to Curtail Cooperation with Russia Under Disarmament Agreement

Forum Contacts RSS		RUSSIAN

RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED 13.04.2014

The United States is planning to suspend cooperation with Russia on a decades-old program providing for the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction due to its objections over the crisis in Ukraine, the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper reported Tuesday, citing a senior US official.

Anne Harrington, the Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the US National Nuclear Security Administration, said all ongoing joint work under the Nunn-Lugar program on the physical protection of nuclear facilities in Russia had been halted, Kommersant reported.

Cooperative projects under the program have now been postponed and expenditures for the US International Material Protection and Cooperation Program have also been reduced by 27 percent, according to the paper.

The US has also frozen funds that had been set aside to finance the transportation of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia as well as the construction of security complexes at nuclear facilities in Ozyorsk and Sarov.

The Russian Foreign Ministry earlier warned that sanctions against Russian officials will backfire on the United States and such rhetoric in relation to Russia was unacceptable and counterproductive. Moscow also vowed to respond proportionally to each hostile move on the part of the U.S.

The Nunn-Lugar Program was adopted in 1991 to provide US assistance to countries of the former USSR in dismantling weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure. The total budget of the program has been estimated at about $9 billion.

In 2012, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that a US proposal on extending the decades-old program was out of sync with Moscow’s concept of cooperation in that area. Following the announcement, the two sides agreed to review the program and signed a temporary bilateral framework agreement last year that reduced the number of joint projects and restricted access for US inspectors to nuclear sites.

Topics: Russia, USA

Other news:

Hungary Enacts Law to Expand Nuclear Power With Russian Aid

Hungary’s president has signed a bill into law to expand a nuclear power plant in the country with Russian assistance.

Hungary Lawmakers OK Russia Nuclear Plant Deal

Russia will provide Hungary a loan of up to 10 billion euros ($13.5 billion) - around 80 percent of construction costs.

Russia to Lend Hungary $13.7Bln for Nuclear Plant

The deal was announced during a state visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and was hailed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Hero of the day

Questions for Jerry Hopwood

We are currently working with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on this approach, which was submitted in response to their February 2012 call for alternative proposals. We appreciate that the UK is in the early stages of their policy development activities and are pleased to be involved in such important work.

INTERVIEW

Yanko Yanev
Unfortunately, we live in this age of narrow political thinking. Each of our politicians think how to survive, whether he will be the next convocation of the parliament or the government or not.

OPINION

Joint Plan of Action
The goal for these negotiations is to reach a mutually-agreed long-term comprehensive solution that would ensure Iran's nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful. Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons.