The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports 63 kilograms of spent highly enriched uranium was removed from Uzbekistan and transported to Mayak in Russia.
The operation was a joint undertaking of the IAEA, the United States, Uzbekistan, Russia and Kazakhstan as part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). This is not the first such removal operation:
This latest shipment follows the successful repatriation of nearly 11 kilograms of fresh highly enriched uranium from the Uzbek reactor in 2004. Over the past three years the IAEA has supported similar operations in other countries including Libya, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic to transfer HEU reactor fuel back to its country of origin.
According to the IAEA, the fuel will be processed so that it can not be used for atomic bombs.
Efforts to secure and remove nuclear and radiological materials that continue to pose a threat to the United States and other nations should be applauded, encouraged and expanded. There is still a significant amount of nuclear materials in dozens of research reactors and other locations throughout the world that could be obtained by terrorists.
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