U.S. Has $20B Plan for Nuclear Safeguards

May 21, 2002
By David Ljunggren, Reuters
OTTAWA -- The United States is pressing its key partners to sign on to a new $20 billion plan to speed up nuclear nonproliferation projects in Russia in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and thereby prevent hostile groups from obtaining weapons-grade material, diplomats said.

But they said some members of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations feared Washington might be moving too quickly with its "10 plus 10 over 10" plan, under which the United States would give $10 billion while the rest of the G-7 would also come up with $10 billion over 10 years.

Washington, which has already committed around $1 billion next year under existing programs to help Russia decommission the vast former Soviet nuclear arsenal, is determined to prevent al-Qaida and other organizations from taking advantage of leaky security at Russian nuclear sites, the diplomats said.

"This is a very ambitious nonproliferation plan. I think Sept. 11 focused people's attention as to how great the dangers of nuclear proliferation are," one G-7 diplomat said.

Details of the plan have yet to be worked out but it is designed to boost efforts to help Moscow deal with the 30,000 nuclear weapons and the highly enriched uranium and plutonium stocks it inherited when the Soviet Union broke apart.

Last year, a bipartisan U.S. task force said the need to secure Russian nuclear weapons, materials and scientific knowledge was "the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States."

U.S. officials first put forward Washington's new plan in mid-April and are determined that it should be formally announced at a summit of leaders of the Group of Eight nations -- the G-7 plus Russia -- in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Kananaskis in late June.

The focus on nonproliferation intensified with the announcement by U.S. President George W. Bush that he planned to sign a treaty with Russia this week under which the two nations would cut their nuclear stockpiles.

Diplomats said G-7 nations were of three minds about the new U.S. plan -- Germany and Canada supported it fully; Britain and France liked the concept but wanted more details; while Italy and Japan were less enthusiastic, in part because of the cost but also because of widespread corruption in Russia.

U.S. officials are now suggesting that instead of handing over billions of dollars to Russia, G-7 countries could forgive some of their Soviet-era debt on the understanding that Moscow spent an equivalent sum on nonproliferation efforts.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday urged the government to draft proposals for the disposal of aging nuclear and chemical weapons stockpiles inherited from the Soviet Union, The Associated Press reported. He ordered the Cabinet to allocate money for the purpose when it writes next year's budget.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/05/21/013.html