Georgia's uranium in limbo

Less than seven kilograms of enriched uranium can produce a nuclear weapon with the explosive power of 1,000 tons of TNT. Almost that much weaponsgrade uranium now sits lightly guarded in Georgia, one of the newly independent states produced by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia, which promised last September to take possession of the material and secure it, ought to do so without delay.

Georgia has no need for the 4.3 kg of highly enriched uranium, provided by Moscow early in the decade to fuel a research reactor no longer in use. President Eduard Shevardnadze says his country lacks the resources to dispose of the uranium, but would happily turn it over to the U.S. or Russia. Washington thought it had won agreement from Moscow to take the material, but the Russian Ministry of Atomic energy has been slow to execute the plan. A simple directive from President Boris Yeltsin or Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin is needed to clear bureaucratic obstacles.

Russian vigilance, U.S. assistance and good fortune have kept Russian nuclear weapons and materials secure since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That record can be preserved if Moscow moves swiftly to collect Georgia's enriched uranium.

-- The New York Times