Beginning***America

Canada (1) -- Analyses -- 2010

Canada helps USA at the nuclear summit in Washington

13.04.2010

Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave the USA administration a helping hand in its push to make the world's enriched uranium supplies more secure at the nuclear summit in Washington ended Tuesday. The 47 nations who attended pledged to secure the world's most vulnerable supplies of nuclear material over the next four years.
Canada will "help fund the return of highly enriched nuclear material from Mexico to the United States, as well as the conversion of Mexico's research reactor to low-enriched uranium," Harper said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Harper also announced on Monday afternoon that Canada would send weapons-grade uranium south of the border for safe keeping in the United States.
Hundreds of kilograms of the highly-enriched material are currently at the Chalk River Laboratories near Ottawa, where it has been used for medical research. It has all been imported from the U.S. over the past two decades for use in the isotope-producing reactor which is currently offline. It will take about eight years to move all of the Canadian-stored uranium to the U.S. The U.S. Department of Energy will then convert the uranium to a form that will render it useless for weapons purposes.
A Canadian government official told The Canadian Press that the U.S. turned down the opportunity to take the uranium for the past 15 years. But recent security concerns have prompted Washington officials to change their position on the issue.
As neighbour of the USA, and jointly responsible for the defence of the continent of North America, Canada has long been closely linked with the United States' nuclear weapons program. Under NATO nuclear weapons sharing, Canada hosted nuclear weapons until 1984. Currently, the nation of Canada does not possess any weapons of mass destruction and has signed treaties repudiating possession of them.
While it has no more permanently stationed nuclear weapons, Canada continues to allow nuclear-armed American planes and naval vessels to use Canadian facilities.