(SBU) GOR AGREES TO ACCEPT DELIVERY OF SEIZED HEU

UNCLAS MOSCOW 001052 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE DEPARTMENT FOR ISN/WMDT MIKE CURRY AND EUR/PRA NATE YOUNG AND T E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KNNP PARM PREL MNUC SUBJECT: (SBU) GOR AGREES TO ACCEPT DELIVERY OF SEIZED HEU REF: SECSTATE 38943 ¶1. (SBU) Per reftel, Embassy Moscow has taken the following actions: ¶2. (SBU) On April 21, U.S. Embassy Moscow FBI Legal Attache sent a letter to General A.F. Kuzyura, Chief of the FSB's International Relations Department, informing him of the planned delivery of the sample and proposing logistics. The FSB agreed to take custody of the sample shortly after the arrival of FBI Director Mueller's plane in Moscow the evening of April 27. ¶3. (SBU) On April 22, Embassy Moscow DOE Head sent a letter to Deputy Director of Rosatom's International Relations Department A. B. Ubeyev informing him of the planned transfer. Embassy Moscow DOE Head also spoke with Federal Customs Service representative Dmitriy Danko, who indicated that he was aware of a Russian government order on the transfer and was already working on logistics. ¶4. (SBU) With those notifications accomplished, EST Counselor spoke on April 23 with MFA Disarmament and Security Affairs Department First Secretary Olga Kuznetsova and then with North America Desk First Secretary Aleksey Ivanov on April 23, informing them that the FSB had agreed to accept custody of the sample and that Rosatom had also been informed. At their request, we followed up with a non-paper drawing from reftel points as follows: ¶5. (SBU/REL GOR) Begin text of non-paper to MFA: As we discussed today, FBI Director Mueller plans to arive in Moscow on April 27 with a ten-gram sample of seized HEU that the Russian government requested for nuclear forensics analysis. As you will see from the attached letters to the FSB and Rosatom, we have arranged for a representative from a responsible Russian law enforcement authority with the proper signatory authority to accept custody of the sample. The FSB has confirmed this will be Andrey Vadimovich Novikov. The transfer of this material will be conducted at the airport the evening of April 27, shortly after the arrival of the Director's aricraft. We have placed a high priority on completing this transfer to facilitate the Russian government's forensic analysis of this material. The United States and Russia have discussed in the past our continuing concern by the prospect that the HEU was diverted from a Russian facility and look forward to learning the results of your investigation. The sample demonstrates our hope to collaborate more closely on promoting a more effective relationship between our law enforcement organizations to counter illicit trafficking of nuclear materials. Our efforts to work more closely on nuclear smuggling and forensics will help advance the goals outlined in our Presidents' recent statement in London of securing vulnerable nuclear materials and improving nuclear security. It is our hope that we will be able to establish a more systematic mechanism to faciliate U.S.-Russian cooperation on investigations into nuclear smuggling cases. RUBIN