U.S. - Russia Collaboration On Nuclear Research

Russia and the United States have signed an agreement to expand cooperation between the countries in nuclear research.

U.S. - Russia Collaboration On Nuclear Research

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Director-General of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation (ROSATOM) Sergey Kirienko signed the Cooperation in Nuclear-and Energy-Related Scientific Research and Development Agreement on the margins of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference in Vienna September 16.

The agreement will complement provisions of the U.S.-Russian Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, which came into force in January 2011 and opened new opportunities to work together on a wide range of issues in this sphere, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

“This agreement supports President Obama’s nonproliferation and climate priorities by providing a venue for scientific collaboration and relationship-building between the U.S. and Russian research and technical communities,” Moniz said. “Jointly, these communities will work to further develop advanced technologies that can address some of our most pressing nuclear energy and nuclear security challenges.”

Potential projects covered by the agreement could include international safeguards, establishment of a Multi-Purpose Fast Research Reactor International Research Center, irradiation of fuels and materials in the fast-spectrum research reactor BOR-60, and defense from asteroids, among others. The United States and Russia are equal partners under the agreement, with each country bearing its own costs.

The United States and Russia have a long history of cooperation on nonproliferation, nuclear security and nuclear energy. This new 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 Umbrella Agreement, which expired in June 2013.

The United States and Russia have also developed a new bilateral framework to continue our longstanding cooperation and reinforce our nonproliferation partnership by permitting cooperative nuclear activities under the Framework Agreement on the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR).

Later in 2013, the United States and Russia are scheduled to celebrate the final delivery of low-enriched uranium under a 1993 agreement that provided for the conversion of 500 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium from nuclear weapons to non-weapons-usable low-enrichment uranium for use in U.S. commercial reactors.

The United States is committed to working with its partner, Russia, to advance the safe and peaceful use of nuclear energy.