The cooperation between Russia and the United States under the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States of America concerning safe and secure transport, storage and destruction of weapons and preventing the proliferation of weapons of 17 June 1992 expired on 16 June 2013. The President of the Russian Federation decided not to renew this agreement, but instead to work out mutually acceptable and equitable ways of cooperating with the United States in the nuclear sphere.
Negotiations with the United States resulted in the drafting of a protocol that refocuses cooperation in the nuclear sphere from predominantly military and political cooperation to nuclear and environmental cooperation. A protocol between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the United States to the Framework Agreement on Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) of 21 May 2003 was signed in Washington on 14 June 2013.
The protocol provides for applying the provisions of the Agreement on Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation to the following areas of cooperation with the United States in the nuclear sphere:
- accounting, monitoring and physical protection of nuclear materials;
- ensuring safety in accounting, monitoring and physical protection of nuclear materials;
- establishing customs control over nuclear and other radioactive materials;
- identifying, retrieving, storing, and ensuring safe handling and disposal of particularly hazardous radioactive sources;
- reducing the number of nuclear material storage facilities, including irradiated and non-irradiated HEU with enrichment of 20% or more of isotope 235, and converting excess highly enriched uranium into low enriched uranium;
- converting Russian research reactors running on highly enriched uranium fuel to low enriched uranium fuel, and developing new processes for low enriched uranium fuel for future conversion of research reactors running on highly enriched uranium fuel to low enriched uranium fuel;
- dismantling, transporting, and extracting fuel, as well as safe storage of nuclear submarines, including transport and safe storage of reactor compartments and related materials to ensure the safety of highly enriched spent nuclear fuel;
- other areas of cooperation, if the parties so agree in writing.
The protocol has been prepared on the basis of paragraph 1 of Article 1 and paragraph 3 of Article 7 of the MNEPR agreement, according to which this multilateral agreement can be expanded on a bilateral basis to include additional areas of cooperation in the nuclear sphere.
