Defense Environment Alert 04/18/06

U.S., RUSSIA CLOSING IN ON DEAL TO EXTEND COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

The United States and Russia are close to a deal that would extend their Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement for another seven years, officials from both countries told sister publication Inside the Pentagon.

Negotiators are in the final stage of crafting language for the new agreement, which would have to be reviewed by several government agencies in Washington and Moscow before it is ready for signature by senior U.S. and Russian leaders, the sources say.

The current CTR arrangement, which covers programs that help destroy former Soviet stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, and delivery systems, expires in June, and this deadline has instilled a sense of urgency on both sides, the sources say.

The proposed extension would apply the existing agreement to all CTR projects already under way, and officials from both countries have been working since February to iron out remaining differences regarding the specifics of what falls into that category. The action comes as recent congressional testimony by a DOD official indicates the U.S. -funded Shchuch'ye chemical weapons demilitarization plant in Russia is experiencing a 14- month delay and as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has officially announced the United States will not be able to meet the 2012 extended international treaty deadline for destroying stockpiled chemical weapons (see related story).

The Pentagon-run CTR program was created in 1991 after Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and then-Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) laid the groundwork for its approval in Congress. CTR is a cornerstone of U.S. nonproliferation efforts, and a primary goal is making sure dangerous material and weapons never fall into the hands of terrorists or hostile states.

Expected to be included in the CTR extension agreement are far-reaching liability protections for U.S. personnel working on nonproliferation projects in Russia.

For years, both countries disagreed on what limits should be placed on such protections. One of Moscow's concerns was the existing blanket liability agreement - part of the original CTR deal - would clear the United States and its citizens of any accountability should a U.S. worker intentionally cause harm.

Washington, for its part, was reluctant to submit U.S. personnel to the Russian court system, which could lead to "either political or economical harassment from either individuals in Russia or the Russian government," a State Department source said last year.

Last year, Russian officials insisted that Washington and Moscow first negotiate a new liability policy for the two countries' plutonium disposition agreement before moving forward on CTR extension, sources said. The idea was this policy could serve as a model to resolve disagreement on CTR liability protections.

In an agreement reached last summer, the United States gave up its push for blanket liability protection for plutonium disposition efforts in Russia, and the two countries set up a process for handling a situation in which an individual deliberately causes damage in the country in which he is working, sources said last fall.

While the U.S. interagency review had cleared this agreement for formal approval last August, the Russian review of the deal took more time. It took until December for the agreement to be forwarded to the office of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov for final approval.

Early this year, however, Russian officials told Bush administration counterparts that the agreement had been sent back for further interagency review because it lacked key clearances, a Russian source confirmed recently. The source, though, declined to say which agencies or offices were left out during the initial interagency inspection.

Despite this development, Russian and U.S. sources are confident that the agreement will be signed as it was negotiated last year, calling the remaining review work a mere formality. Russia has assured the United States at "very, very high levels" that the deal will be approved, a Bush administration official said March 28.

Once signed, the liability agreement is expected to be applied for new projects under the CTR umbrella, sources say.