IAEA Perspectives on Excess Materials

The paper will provide a status report on the IAEA's past activities and future option for \"excess\" fissile material in nuclear weapon States, particularly under the Voluntary Offer Safeguards Agreement with the United States (INFCIRC/288). The paper will report on experience from the application of IAEA safeguards at a number of U.S. facilities, on the use of a verification experiment for HEU down-blending at an enrichment plant, and on proposals for the verification of the down-blending HEU in a \"Wet\" process (and how the Agency built experience up for this) and the storage of plutonium at a facility with a difficult-to-access inventory. It will provide some details on activities underway in regards of the Trilateral Initiative between the Russian Federation, the United States, and the IAEA: the technical measures, a legal framework and a funding regime. It considers why this activity should be different to the application of IAEA safeguards under a Voluntary Offer Agreement. The Agency's proposals for the \"IAEA Verification of Weapon-Origin Fissile Material in the Russian Federation and the United States\" and the \"Financing Agency Verification of Nuclear Arms Control and Reduction Measures\" will be introduced, and some reflections from the Agency's Board of Governors on these proposals will be recalled.