Plutonium Pact With U.S. Signed, Russia Says

Russia and the United States have formally signed an agreement to destroy 68 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, the Russian government said Saturday.

A government statement said Vice President Al Gore had signed the agreement Friday in Washington and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov had signed it Tuesday in Moscow.

The deal was reached between Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and President Clinton during their June summit in Moscow.

The West has doubted the ability of post-Soviet Russia to properly control depots where weapons-grade plutonium is stored.

U.S. officials, alarmed by the nuclear ambitions of some “rogue states,” have said it only takes 13 to 18 pounds of plutonium to make a powerful bomb.

The agreement says that the International Atomic Energy Agency will monitor and control “the activities of Russia and the United States connected with the destruction of weapons-grade plutonium,” the Russian statement said.

Putin and Clinton are expected to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York this week.

The plutonium pact requires each country to render the weapons-grade plutonium into a form unusable for nuclear weapons and to pledge never to use it for that purpose again.

According to U.S. officials, the 34 tons of plutonium to be destroyed by each country represent about one-quarter of Russia’s military plutonium stockpile and about one-third of that of the United States.