The presidents will assess the progress during their further meetings scheduled for the rest of the year, reads the joint explanation statement for the Bratislava initiatives.
In nuclear security, both sides will enhance their cooperation to counter nuclear terrorism, seeing it as a major threat both nations have to face.
"Part of this cooperation will be ensuring better response to nuclear and radiological incidents, notably through developing advanced technologies to detect nuclear or radioactive materials that are or could be related to such incidents; performing concerted efforts to promote full enforcement of Resolution 1540 of the UN Security Council; sharing both nations' best practices for the security of nuclear sites - with one another as well as with other developed nuclear nations; improving the security culture of both nations; joint development of low-enriched uranium nuclear fuel to be used at Russian- and US-made research reactors installed in countries where low-enriched uranium nuclear fuel is used, and taking back medium- and high-enriched uranium waste from the Russian- and US-made research reactors," the document reads.
The presidents have acknowledged that security of nuclear sites in Russia and the US is in line with all modern requirements, but underscored that the said requirements should be continually upgraded to successfully counter the worsening threat of terrorism.
To that end, the presidents have agreed to work out a plan of action until and beyond 2008 to jointly upgrade security systems of their nuclear sites.
The Presidents have set up a senior Russian-American interdepartmental task force to promote nuclear security cooperation (including the cannibalization of discarded military-use fissile materials). The task force will be co-chaired by Chief of the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation Alexander Rumyantsev and US Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman.
The task force is supposed to prepare a report on the progress in bilateral cooperation in this field, with due account for its key financial, legal, technological, and other issues, the explanation statement on the Bratislava initiatives reads.
The Russian and US leaders also urged their governments to improve cooperation in many other areas.
The co-chairs of the Russian-American antiterrorist working group were ordered to fully enforce a new plan of action to be updated to be relevant to new terrorist challenges.
In view of a growing threat emerging from custom-made bombs widely employed by terrorists, the presidents also agreed to order Russian and American experts to share information about such bombs.
They also said Russian and American experts would be urged to ensure safer storage of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Such missiles should be destroyed if classified as obsolete or discarded from ready-to-use defense stockpiles. Messrs. Putin and Bush also agreed to prevent illegal production and transfer of such weapons in full compliance with an accord signed in Bratislava by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
According to the explanation statement on the Bratislava initiatives, "This agreement sets the bilateral US-Russia framework for cooperation in the control over shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, for such weapons could endanger air traffic globally if they ended up in the hands of terrorists, criminals, or other non-governmental groups."
