Last Friday, the countries signed a liability agreement under which the United States and Russia would dispose of 68 metric tons (about 150,000 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium by converting it into fuel for commercial reactors.
Samuel Bodman said that Russia and the United States enhanced the security of hundreds of tons of material for weapons, and that they planned to complete the work in 2008.
"This agreement demonstrates that both countries continue to be committed to this important nonproliferation program, which will dispose of enough weapons-grade plutonium for more than 16,000 nuclear weapons," Bodman said following the signing Friday.
Bodman also said the countries were successfully implementing the HEU-LEU conversion program, as well as the program on the repatriation of highly enriched uranium to Russia from a number of countries.
The repatriation is part of a Russian-U.S. intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in returning nuclear fuel from Russian-made research reactors, signed in May 2004, and a joint statement on nuclear security signed by presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Bratislava in February 2005.
Since 2004, Russia has repatriated new HEU from Soviet-built plants in eight countries -- Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Libya, Latvia, Poland and Uzbekistan.
