The former Soviet republic of Belarus announced Wednesday that it will give up its stockpile of material used to make nuclear weapons by 2012.
The arrangement was announced on the sidelines of an international security meeting in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Belarussian counterpart, Sergei Martynov.
The announcement is a significant step forward in efforts aimed at keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists, and follows similar commitments made by other former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan.
As the article notes, this follows the securing of nuclear material in Kazakhstan.
In the long run, we need to stop nutball regimes from mastering the technology of creating nuclear bomb raw material. In the short run, we need to make sure the existing raw material doesn't make it to nutballs.
