VIENNA: The United States said yesterday it had worked with Russia to help remove 50 kg of highly-enriched uranium from Poland as part of a global campaign to reduce the use of nuclear fuel that could also serve as material for bombs.
Washington and Moscow continue to cooperate on a case-by-case basis in areas of mutual nuclear security concern despite a current “substantial strain” in their relations, US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said.
Russia’s role in the separatist conflict in the east of its neighbour Ukraine has plunged relations between Moscow and the West to their worst level since the Cold War era.
Refined uranium fuels nuclear reactors but, if processed to a high degree, can also form the fissile core of nuclear bombs.
Highly-enriched uranium (HEU) has traditionally been used for research reactors, making such plants especially sensitive.
“We have just moved more than 50 kilogrammes of HEU from Poland, working with Russia cooperatively, to accomplish that,” Moniz said on the sidelines of a UN nuclear agency meeting in Vienna.
Moniz told a news conference it was “one more step in our long-term process of removing and in many cases eliminating HEU and plutonium from various countries.”
Plutonium can also be used to fuel a nuclear weapon.
Russian officials were not immediately available for comment on the matter.
REUTERS
