Japan announces transfer of nuclear material to U.S. for destruction

Japan has decided to turn over its weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium to the U.S. for destruction to "help prevent unauthorized actors, criminals, or terrorists from acquiring such materials."

Japan's announcement comes during President Barack Obama's third Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague.

The nuclear material -- which includes 700 pounds of weapons-grad plutonium -- will be transported to the U.S., where it "will be sent to a secure facility and fully converted into less sensitive forms."

The decision to transfer control of Japan's nuclear cache was both practical and political, The New York Times reported.

A Times reporter visited the main storage site at Tokaimura in the 1990s and observed lax security. Although there were improvements to Tokaimura's security in recent years, "the stores have long been considered vulnerable."

Additionally, Japan's stockpile of weapons-grade material has been criticized by Iran and China "as evidence of a double standard."

White House National Security Council Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall commented on Japan's nuclear transfer: "This is the biggest commitment to remove fissile materials in the history of the summit process that President Obama launched, and it is a demonstration of Japan’s shared leadership on nonproliferation.”

[New York Times]