Year 1998

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Plutonium Disposition Agreements Signed at IAEA

Associated Press, 22 September 1998 (title by WISE-Paris)

[Posted 11/12/1998]

VIENNA, Austria, Sept. 22 - The United States and Russia signed two agreements Tuesday to help privatize Russia's crumbling nuclear program and stop nuclear scientists and plutonium stockpiles from leaving the country. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and Russia's atomic energy minister, Yevgeny Adamov, signed the agreements at the U.N. office in Vienna during a conference on atomic energy, which opened monday. One agreement clears the way for each country to get rid of about 55 tons of plutonium by breaking it down and selling it to Western companies so it cannot be used for military purposes

The second accord focuses on opening up Russia formerl secret nuclear cities, where scientits have been growing increasingly unhappy over the cash-strapped government's inability to pay them.

The United States agreed to invest $30 million over the next five years to generate jobs by bringing private compainies and investors to 10 of Russia's leading nuclear research centers. [...]

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