WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- A U.S. nuclear agency announced Monday it had signed a deal with Vietnam to convert a highly enriched uranium powered reactor.
The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration said it had "signed contracts with Vietnam to begin to convert a research reactor from highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium and to secure nuclear and radiological materials."
The NNSA said the new deal fulfilled an agreement reached by U.S. President George W. Bush with Hanoi's leaders during his October 2006 trip to Vietnam. It said the agreement was also in accord with the Bratislava Joint Statement on Nuclear Security Cooperation announced by Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2005.
The NNSA said it made the agreement with the Vietnamese Atomic Energy Commission "to supply the low enriched fuel needed to convert the Russian-supplied Dalat research reactor in Vietnam."
"NNSA will also work closely with Vietnam, under a contract with the International Atomic Energy Agency, to the return the fresh, highly enriched fuel back to Russia for safe and secure disposal," the agency said in a statement.
"We commend the government of Vietnam and applaud their leadership in taking this significant step to protect nuclear material," said Thomas D'Agostino, NNSA's acting administrator.
The NNSA also noted that Hanoi had recently made other agreements to boost "the physical security at the Dalat reactor and other radiological facilities in Vietnam."
The NNSA said these programs would be run through its Global Threat Reduction Initiative. The GTRI's mission "is to identify, recover and secure high-risk vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials around the world as quickly as possible," the NNSA said.
