Vladimir Zhidkikh, member of Federation Council Nuclear Energy Sub-Committee

— Russian-US nuclear energy relations are moving from political to economic field

On May 6 2008 Russia and the United States signed an inter-governmental agreement for cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

This agreement will create the necessary legal basis for Russia-US cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy and will permit the expansion of such cooperation.

The agreement is supposed to foster the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

The key obstacle to the development of mutually beneficial partnership between the United States and Russia in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy was the burden of political restrictions that was present in any bilateral agreement concerning nuclear energy cooperation.

In 2006 the leaders of the United States and Russia realized that they could no longer go on like that and started developing new modern relations free from the phobias of the “iron curtain.”

As a result, in early 2008 Russia attained the lifting of restrictions on its uranium supplies to the United States. And now Russia and the United States have signed an agreement for cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, thereby, proving that their nuclear energy relations are moving from the political to economic field.