U.S.-Russia nuclear agreements likely to be salvaged

PanARMENIAN.Net - Two agreements on nuclear industry cooperation, meant to be signed at the upcoming meeting of U.S. and Russian presidents, will likely be salvaged despite the meeting’s cancellation, RIA Novosti said Saturday, Aug 10, citing a report in Kommersant newspaper.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were to sign the two deals at their meeting in Moscow on September 3.

One deal was to boost bilateral contacts and information exchange on nuclear weapons proliferation under the aegis of Russia’s National Nuclear Threat Reduction Center, while the other was to allow Russian state-run nuclear monopoly Rosatom collaborate with U.S. laboratories, the report said.

Obama canceled the meeting with Putin earlier this week over lack of prospects for progress in the bilateral agenda as well as Moscow’s harboring of accused U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

But the nuclear threat agreement will likely still be signed “in foreseeable future” to indicate that U.S.-Russian military cooperation is not entirely on hold, Kommersant said, quoting an unnamed Russian defense official.

The Rosatom deal is still at drafting stage, but may be signed by the heads of the Russian corporation and the U.S. Department of Energy, not the presidents, once the document is ready, the newspaper said, citing another unnamed source familiar with the situation.