Vietnam Nears Agreement to Remove Uranium

By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire

VIENNA — A deal to remove highly enriched uranium from a Vietnamese nuclear research reactor could be finalized this month, a senior Vietnamese official said today (see GSN, Feb. 5, 2004).

The removal would be the latest fuel “repatriation” mission in a series that has accelerated since the United States and Russia agreed in 2004 to revitalize efforts to recover nuclear weapon-usable reactor fuel the two nations once freely delivered around the world.

The 500-kilowatt Vietnamese reactor at the Dalat Nuclear Research Institute was built more than 40 years ago with U.S. assistance and has since been supplied with fuel from Russia.

Talks today at International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters here were intended to complete arrangements for Russia to recover the fuel from Dalat.

Participants at the two-day meeting include officials from Vietnam, Russia, the United States, Poland and the agency.

“There are no serious issues” of disagreement, said Vuong Huu Tan, head of Vietnam’s Atomic Energy Commission.  “Everyone is in agreement.”

Tan said the parties would probably complete the deal this month, perhaps at a meeting next week in Washington, and then conduct the fuel retrieval in September.  A fresh delivery of Russian low-enriched fuel would be made at the same time, Tan said.

The Dalat reactor does not pose a serious proliferation risk because the amount of material is so small, according to Tan.  There are only about 40 grams of highly enriched uranium that contains 36 percent of the uranium 235 isotope that is so valuable in nuclear weapons.

Still, the removal would represent another success for the U.S.-Russian Global Threat Reduction Initiative.  Under that effort a number of research reactors have returned their fuel to Russia, most recently a German facility (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2006).

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