Global Security Newswire

The United Kingdom this week pledged to supply $3.5 million for U.S. threat reduction operations in three nations (see GSN, April 1, 2010).

Funding will be directed to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative managed by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. The British assistance would finance radiological material security training in Afghanistan, improvements in protections around radiological substances in Belarus, and radiological and nuclear protection efforts in Uzbekistan, according to an NNSA press release.

The Global Threat Reduction Initiative focuses on improving security around vulnerable nuclear and radiological substances across the planet and on switching foreign reactors that use highly enriched uranium to run on lower enriched fuel not suitable for use in nuclear weapons.

"We welcome the U.K.'s longstanding and generous partnership with the NNSA's nuclear nonproliferation programs. This contribution underscores the cooperation between our two countries to strengthen global efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear material around the world, prevent nuclear smuggling and keep dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists and proliferators," NNSA Deputy Administrator Anne Harrington said in provided comments.

London has now provided in excess of $26 million to NNSA programs aimed at preventing the spread of sensitive materials across the globe. About half of that has been directed to GTRI activities in three collaborations.

Other nations that have provided monetary or in-kind support to NNSA nuclear and radiological nonproliferation programs are Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and South Korea. The multinational support has amounted to in excess of $11 million to augment the semiautonomous Energy Department agency's Second Line of Defense initiative; in excess of $31 million to shutter Russia's final reactors for generating weapon-usable plutonium; and almost $30 million to decrease and secure high-risk radiological and nuclear substances at nonmilitary atomic installations across the globe (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, June 14).