The United States, in cooperation with Yugoslav and Russian authorities and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, secretly transported more than 100 pounds of weapon-grade nuclear material Wednesday from a reactor in Yugoslavia to Russia, U.S. officials said.

Three guarded trucks left the Vinca Institute Wednesday night and drove to the Belgrade airport.  One of the trucks carried more than 5,000 rods of highly enriched uranium — enough to make two nuclear bombs.  The material was flown to Russia, where it will be processed for use in a commercial power plant, and arrived in the country yesterday.

U.S. State Department officials said Wednesday night that they did not know where in Russia the material would be processed, but Serbian officials told Reuters it would go to the Ulyanovsk Nuclear Processing Plant, the New York Times reported.

U.S. officials and nuclear analysts praised the project as an example of international cooperation to reduce the risk that terrorists or hostile states could acquire nuclear weapon materials.  The United States paid $2.5 million for the project out of State Department nuclear threat reduction funds, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private nonprofit group, provided $5 million for environmental cleanup at the Vinca Institute, State Department officials said.

The United States had been concerned that adversaries could acquire nuclear material from the institute, which has been closed for more than a decade with questionable security, according to the Times.

“Serbia might have decided to sell this material to Iraq,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “It’s a good thing for all of us that that possibility has now been eliminated” (Dames Dao, New York Times, Aug. 23).

“By disposing of the hazardous material, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, Vinca is no longer a potential target for possible terrorist attempts to get hold of this fuel,” a Yugoslav government spokesman said.

State Department officials praised Russia for its cooperation.  In past years, Russia had been unwilling to help return nuclear supplies that the Soviet Union had provided to allies to Russia for reprocessing, but the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry worked closely with U.S. officials for many months to plan this week’s operation and agreed to accept the uranium.

“There has been a sea change,” said Janet Bogue, deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs.  “The Russians were eager to get this done.  They are just as acutely aware of the risks as we are” (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Aug. 23). 

The Soviet Union had provided the Vinca Institute’s reactor, and it was used for scientific research, training power plant operators and producing medical and industrial materials, the Times reported (Dao, New York Times).

The Washington Post, however, reported that former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito carried out a secret nuclear weapons development program at the institute.  “We must have the atomic bomb.  We must build it even if it costs us one-half of our income for years,” he told aides in 1950, according to histories of the time.

Yugoslavia never developed nuclear weapons, but there were concerns about the remaining unused uranium fuel left at the reactor when it closed in 1984, said William Potter, director of the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“You still have at Vinca many of the scientists who had been involved in this covert nuclear weapons program,” Potter said.  “Whatever technical know-how is needed for a weapon, you have that in spades at Vinca” (Warrick, Washington Post, Aug. 23).

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group, Inc.]

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