Russian
President Vladimir Putin on Monday suspended an agreement with the United
States for disposal of weapons-grade plutonium because of
"unfriendly" acts by
Washington, the Kremlin said.
A Kremlin
spokesman said Putin had signed a decree suspending the 2010 agreement under
which each side committed to destroy tonnes of weapons-grade material because
Washington had not been implementing it and because of current tensions in
relations.
The two former
Cold War adversaries are at loggerheads over a raft of issues including
Ukraine, where Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and supports pro-Moscow
separatists, and the conflict in Syria.
The deal,
signed in 2000 but which did not come into force until 2010, was being
suspended due to "the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as
a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the
Russian Federation", the preamble to the decree said.
It also said
that Washington had failed "to ensure the implementation of its
obligations to utilize surplus weapons-grade plutonium".
The 2010
agreement, signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then-U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on each side to dispose of 34 tonnes
of plutonium by burning in nuclear reactors.
Clinton said
at the time that that was enough material to make almost 17,000 nuclear
weapons. Both sides then viewed the deal as a sign of increased cooperation
between the two former adversaries toward a joint goal of nuclear
non-proliferation.
"For
quite a long time, Russia had been implementing it (the agreement)
unilaterally," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with
journalists on Monday.
"Now,
taking into account this tension (in relations) in general ... the Russian side
considers it impossible for the current state of things to last any
longer."
Ties between
Moscow and Washington plunged to freezing point over Crimea and Russian support
for separatists in eastern Ukraine after protests in Kiev toppled pro-Russian
President Viktor Yanukovich.
Washington led
a campaign to impose Western economic sanctions on Russia for its role in the
Ukraine crisis.
Relations
soured further last year when Russia deployed its warplanes to an air base in
Syria to provide support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops fighting
rebels.
The rift has
widened in recent weeks, with Moscow accusing Washington of not delivering on
its promise to separate units of moderate Syrian opposition from
"terrorists".
Huge cost
overruns have also long been another threat to the project originally estimated
at a total of $5.7 billion.
Reuters
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