The latest round of negotiations to settle pricing terms for a U.S.-Russian deal to purchase uranium taken from Russian nuclear warheads ended Friday without reaching an agreement (see GSN, Jan. 24).

U.S. Enrichment Corp. officials said the talks are progressing normally and there is no danger to the “Megatons to Megawatts” program, the Associated Press reported.

USEC is the designated U.S. purchaser of enriched uranium recycled from Russian nuclear weapons.  In mid-January, however, Russian officials asked the U.S. government to get involved in the talks, according to the Associated Press.  Russian Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev wrote U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and recommended government-to-government negotiations to resolve pricing term disputes.

“USEC’s proposals [to lower the uranium costs] aim to create a price-setting mechanism, which would help the company solve its financial difficulties at the expense of the Russian party,” Rumyantsev wrote.

Abraham turned down the Russian request, the AP reported.  In a telegram to the Russian finance minister, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said Russia should “encourage Tenex [the Russian counterpart to USEC] to work to resolve the remaining differences, which in our view do not lend themselves to resolution by governments.”

“This deal is critical to the future of international security,” said Bill Hoehn, of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.  “To see it fail would be an enormous tragedy” (Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press/Moscow Times, Jan. 28).

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