FACT SHEET ON U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION ON NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

A New Legal Framework for U.S.-Russian Cooperation in Nuclear Nonproliferation and Security
Fact Sheet
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
June 19, 2013

On June 14, the United States and the Russian Federation signed a bilateral framework on threat reduction that reinforces our longstanding partnership on nonproliferation. This new legal framework builds upon the success of the 1992 Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of Weapons Proliferation, commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Umbrella Agreement, which expired on June 17, 2013.


As long-time partners with a mutual interest in promoting nuclear security, the United States and the Russian Federation have successfully worked together on a broad range of activities designed to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by securing and eliminating WMD-related materials and technology, and engaging relevant expertise. This close cooperation will continue under a new framework that reflects the evolution of this longstanding partnership, recognizes common threats, and provides for the continuation of a range of cooperative projects to reduce nuclear threats. It also allows for the addition of new activities in the future.

Future joint nuclear security activities in the Russian Federation will be conducted under the 2003 Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) and a related bilateral Protocol signed on June 14, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

Under the new bilateral protocol to MNEPR, U.S.-Russian cooperation will continue in a broad array of nuclear security and nonproliferation areas, including but not limited to:
improving security of nuclear and radiological material;
customs control of nuclear and radioactive material;
recovery and securing of radioactive sources;
consolidation of nuclear material and conversion of excess highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU);
conversion of HEU research reactors to operate with LEU; and
nuclear submarine dismantlement.
The new framework includes provisions that will authorize and facilitate bilateral cooperation in these areas and are based on the provisions of the previous agreement on bilateral nuclear security cooperation. We anticipate a number of U.S. government organizations, including the Departments of State, Energy, and Defense, , will remain involved under this new agreement.

Under the new framework, the Russian Federation will assume the costs and complete without further U.S. assistance two areas of bilateral CTR cooperation previously covered by the CTR framework: ballistic missile elimination and chemical weapons destruction. Projects in both areas were winding down this year after many years of successful cooperation. The parties continue to discuss potential technical cooperation on chemical weapons destruction outside the new framework. Additionally, we have worked together intensively over the years with Russia on its nuclear warhead protection systems. We are proud of these joint efforts, and Russia will now take full responsibility over this mission.

The United States looks forward to continued partnership on nuclear security with the Russian Federation in this new era of nonproliferation cooperation. The citizens of both of our nations are safer for the work that was completed under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, and we are strongly committed to making further progress under this new cooperative agreement.

DOD WORKS ON NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION

The following excerpt is from a U.S. Defense Department American Forces Press Service e-mail:
Official: DOD Improves Posture on 'Loose Nuke' Threat
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, March 15, 2012 - Though the Defense Department's role in nuclear nonproliferation centers on dismantling weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet Union states, DOD also plans, equips and trains for scenarios in which terrorists get their hands on nuclear weapons, the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for global strategic affairs said yesterday.

Kenneth B. Handelman testified with colleagues from the State Department, the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration and the Government Accountability Office before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's subcommittee on oversight of government management.

The hearing focused on interagency nuclear nonproliferation efforts around the world.
For fiscal 2013, Handelman said, President Barack Obama's budget request for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, or CTR, is $519 million, roughly $130 million of which would be devoted to nuclear security-related activities, which he called "truly a governmentwide team effort." CTR is an initiative created in 1991 to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction and associated infrastructure in former Soviet Union states.

DOD's contribution to the nuclear security effort "comes primarily through CTR," Handelman said.

"However," he added, "given DOD's overall mission to defend the nation, there's a whole world of separate nuclear-security activities for which my agency plans, equips and trains."
Such activities, he said, "center on a scenario none of us want to confront; namely, what to do when we think the bad guys actually have gotten their hands on really bad things."
Planning for this type of "loose-nukes" situation is evolving substantially, Handelman said, and the watchword for DOD's new thinking focuses on integration across DOD components and across the government.

"For instance," he said, "the instability or collapse of a nuclear-armed state could quickly lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons or materials well beyond the country of origin and involve multiple state and nonstate actors as it moves across the globe."
Today, Handelman said, the services are working to improve DOD's defensive posture against the threat by enhancing the homeland's protective posture, working with the intelligence community to better analyze and track terrorist networks, identifying likely paths to proliferation, and improving the ability to characterize the source and nature of loose-nuke threats.

"Our work at DOD has focused on how U.S. military units would coordinate with other U.S. agencies and with allies and partners in the face of such a loose-nuke threat scenario," Handelman said.

Handelman said the first line of defense in attaining global nuclear security is a group of activities in which agencies from across the U.S. government participate, including DOD.
Thomas Countryman, assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, described for the panel a three-tiered U.S. strategy -- site level, country level and global level -- to lock down or remove vulnerable nuclear materials.
"At the site level," he said, "we work with other countries to minimize the civilian use of highly enriched uranium, to eliminate unneeded weapons-usable material, and to improve security at specific sites."

Where site-level assistance is inappropriate," Countryman added, "we cooperate at the country level with foreign governments to exchange best practices and to demonstrate the safe use of equipment."

At the global level, the assistant secretary said, the United States helps to develop global initiatives through the Nuclear Security Summit process, the United Nations and other means to improve nuclear security around the world."
One example is U.S. engagement with the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, he added, a partnership of 83 nations that conduct activities to strengthen plans, policies and interoperability on the issue of nuclear terrorism.

The National Nuclear Security Administration also makes important contributions at the site and national levels, Anne Harrington said, including working with partner countries on their nuclear security centers of excellence.

"These centers form an important network that will allow countries and regions to strengthen capabilities to secure facilities and to deter, detect and interdict illicit trafficking of nuclear and radiological material," she said.

The NNSA also holds quarterly coordination meetings with DOD colleagues at the assistant-secretary level, Harrington said, "to discuss areas of common interest, coordinate on program ideas and do forward planning."

The United States is looking forward into a global nuclear economy, she added, one that, despite the incidents at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, will continue to expand in terms of use of nuclear power and uranium commerce.
"As long as nuclear materials exist," Countryman told the panel, "we will have the same need to set the best possible example in the United States of securing those materials and of sharing that capability for protection with other countries, motivating them to do the same."