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Progress has been slowest in the area of increasing transparency and adding verification measures with regards to US-Russia nuclear security efforts. This is best explained by that such measures necessitate openness at the heart the nuclear balance, the secret management and accountancy of nuclear weapons and material. Best results have been achieved in implementing transparency measures under the HEU Purchase Agreement where commercial interests of selling uranium paved the way for intrusive inspections to verify that the material originated from warheads.
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Warhead and Fissile Material Transparency
Program |
Bi-lateral documents
The Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission
In 1993, the US and Russia established the Joint Commission on Economic
and Technological Cooperation (also known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin
Commission) with the mandate to support cooperation on space- and
energy related issues. The first sub-committee formed was the Energy
Policy Committee with emphasis on encouraging cooperation on nuclear
energy production issues. An additional goal of the Energy Policy
Committee was to reduce the risks of nuclear power and of Dismantlement
of Nuclear Weapons, which gave impetus to, inter alia, the
following documents:
Other Resources
Trilateral Initiative |
Launched in 1996 by the US, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency the, the Trilateral Initiative intends to develop a new verification system under which nuclear weapons states can verify the presence and accounting of warheads and fissile materials without revealing classified information. US and Russia has yet to commit legally to the project, which is still in the developing phase examining technical, legal and financial issues associated with IAEA verification of the origin of weapons origin and materials. If put into place, the system is meant to verify, among other things, implementation of the Plutonium Disposition Agreement and the Mayak Fissile Storage Facility Construction Program.