U.S. Nuclear Security Efforts in Russia Stalled Amid Ongoing Ukraine Crisis
Douglas Guarino
March 5, 2014
U.S. Energy Department efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials in Russia have stalled following the expiration of a long-held agreement with Moscow last summer, an agency official said on Tuesday.
The now-tenuous situation in neighboring Ukraine may further delay the initiatives, according to Anne Harrington, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
The so-called Cooperative Threat Reduction umbrella agreement expired in June, in part because Moscow was no longer interested in extending a pact that shielded the U.S. government and its contractors from virtually all liability from incidents that could occur during the course of work on Russian soil.
The 20-year-old-accord is often referred to as the “Nunn-Lugar” agreement, due to the roles former Senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) played in forging the pact as the Soviet Union was collapsing.
Read the full article here.
