US-Russia agreement on disposal of weapons-grade plutonium

WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia have signed an agreement on converting tonnes of excess weapons-grade plutonium into material unsuitable for use in nuclear arms by terrorists or rogue states, officials said.

The State Department called the protocol "a key step to enable cooperation between the two countries" in the fight against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The deal with lead to conversion by the US and Russia of 34 tonnes each of weapon-grade plutonium "into forms unusable for weapons by terrorists or others", State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The plutonium represents enough fissile material to make more than 16,000 nuclear weapons," he said.

"The signing of this protocol also has significant benefits for other cooperative programs between the United States and Russia," he said, adding that bilateral discussions were continuing on an array of other non-proliferation and security issues.

The protocol was signed a day after a meeting here of the US-Russia Counterterrorism Working Group, created six years ago by then US president Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A State Department official said the group has successfully cooperated on a broad range of counterterrorism issues in the past, including bio-terrorism and exchange of terrorism threat information.