Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

Chapter 21. Fissile Material Production419existing fissile material stockpiles or with compliance verification. 14Even the closest U.S. allies voiced objection. 15 This appears to bethe reason why Barack Obama announced in Prague on April 5,2009, that the United States desired a “verifiable” FMCT. This wasa positive move by the new U.S. administration, and it is importantnow to see exactly how it will unfold.In 2009, a strong push was made at the Conference on Disarmamentfor resuming the FMCT negotiations, and in May of that year an agendawas finally agreed upon under which negotiations on the matterwere to begin. 16 Soon thereafter, however, this deal unfortunatelybroke down due to the negative attitude of Pakistan, supported byChina. In 2010, new additional efforts were unsuccessful in elicitingpositive results. In March, the Conference chairman (the representativefrom Belarus) once again made an attempt to draft an agendaaimed at opening FMCT negotiations 17 with the support of a considerablenumber of nations (including Russia and the United States),but Pakistan once again blocked its adoption. 18Steps Toward Reducing Stockpilesof Fissile MaterialsDespite the lack of any multilateral agreements on a fissile materialcut-off, Russia and the United States have made substantialefforts over the past 10 to 15 years to reduce their fissile materialstockpiles. Aside from a halt to the production of these materials bythem and a number of other nuclear nations, as mentioned above,the two powers also undertook such measures as signing the 1993HEU-LEU agreement for 20 years, under which 500 tons of highlyenricheduranium removed from dismantled Russian nuclear warheadswas to be blended down by Russia and sent over for use as fuelin U.S. civil nuclear power plants; 19 signing an agreement in 2000on the recycling of plutonium, under which each party was requiredto convert its weapons-grade plutonium into forms unusable for nuclearweapons, either by burning it as reactor fuel or converting itinto immobilized forms that are only suited for geological entombment(although, it is true, this recycling agreement covering 34tons of plutonium for each country, is still not being implemented);the Nunn-Lugar program ensuring the security of fissile materialsand reduction in their production; the trilateral initiative on verifi-