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Fissile Material

  • Belarus Agrees to Give Up HEU Stockpile
    Arms Control Today
    January 10, 2011

    Belarus has pledged to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 2012, and Ukraine took a major step toward fulfilling a similar commitment made last year.

  • N. Korea Reveals Uranium-Enrichment Plant
    Arms Control Today
    December 5, 2010

    North Korea unveiled a large uranium-enrichment pilot plant to a visiting team of former U.S. officials and academics Nov. 12, complicating efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and potentially providing the country with another path to nuclear weapons.
  • Verification on the Road to Zero: Issues for Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement
    Arms Control Today
    December 5, 2010
  • Keeping Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Peaceful: What Must the Obama Administration and Congress Do?
    ACA Events
    December 2, 2010

    Recent revelations regarding North Korea’s uranium enrichment and reactor program have increased concerns that more nations may develop peaceful nuclear programs as a way to develop a nuclear weapons option. Please join NPEC and the Arms Control Associations on December 2, 2010 for a panel discussion.
  • Time for Leadership on the Fissile Cutoff
    Arms Control Today
    October 1, 2010

    Ending the production of fissile material—plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU)—for nuclear weapons is a long-sought and still vital nonproliferation objective. Last year, President Barack Obama pledged to “lead a global effort” to negotiate a verifiable fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT), but talks at the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament (CD) remain blocked, as they have been for nearly a dozen years.
  • Iran-Turkey-Brazil Fuel Deal Has Potential if Iran Provides Follow-Up Steps
    Issue Briefs
    May 17, 2010

    Volume 1, Number 5

    Iran's agreement to ship 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey as part of an nuclear fuel exchange agreement brokered by Brazil and Turkey is a potentially positive development, but one of limited value without the appropriate follow-through.
  • World Leaders Vow to Boost Nuclear Security
    Arms Control Today
    May 5, 2010

    Four dozen world leaders meeting in Washington last month agreed on general principles and individual steps for improving the security of nuclear materials around the world and for preventing nuclear terrorism.

    Speaking to reporters at a news conference at the close of the April 12-13 summit, President Barack Obama, who convened the event, said the participating nations “seized” the opportunity “to make concrete commitments and take tangible steps to secure nuclear materials.”
  • Playing the Nuclear Game: Pakistan and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty
    Arms Control Today
    April 1, 2010

    Since May 2009, Pakistan, largely alone, has blocked the start of international talks on a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) at the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva.[1] The treaty would ban the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes; fissile materials, namely plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons. Pakistan has prevented these negotiations despite having accepted last year a CD program of work that included an FMCT.
  • Pakistan Raises New Issues at Stalled CD
    Arms Control Today
    March 4, 2010

    Pakistan has raised a new set of concerns in the Conference on Disarmament (CD), the UN body responsible for negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT).

    Islamabad’s objections are holding up the CD’s approval of a program of work on an FMCT and other issues.
  • NNSA Nonproliferation Funding Poised to Rise
    Arms Control Today
    March 4, 2010

    Funding for nonproliferation work in the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would rise by about 25 percent under the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2011 request, with a large part of the increase going to efforts in Russia and the United States to turn surplus weapons plutonium into reactor fuel.

    Another NNSA effort that would receive a hefty increase is the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), which aims to secure vulnerable nuclear and radiological material around the world.