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Clinton, Putin ready to sign agreement on plutonium disposal |
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June 5, 2000 MOSCOW, JUNE 4 (AP) - U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in the Kremlin Sunday for talks aimed at further reducing the nuclear threat. As a first step, they agreed to give up 68 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
Only a final handshake was required to seal the deal to dispose of plutonium that could have built thousands of nuclear warheads, a U.S. official said.
Under the agreement, each country will destroy 34 metric tons of the material. The pact calls for the "safe, transparent and irreversible disposition" of the plutonium. Details of the agreement had been worked out in advance of the weekend meeting.
Also, while at odds over antimissile defenses, Clinton and Putin were expected to agree to cooperate in improving early-warning systems against attack.
The two leaders chatted amiably for a few minutes in a room just off of the Kremlin's St. Catherine's Hall.
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott sat in with Clinton while Sergie Prikhodko, a Russian adviser, was with Putin. After meeting for more than an hour, they were joined in the hall itself by more aides.
In deference to the non-smoking Americans, a Russian aide removed the ash trays from the table.
Secretary of State Nadeleine Albright, known for her variety of lapel pins, wore one featuring three monkeys. Clinton reminded Putin of the "hear no evil, speak no evil, say no evil" symbolism of the monkeys.
"That's Madeleine's whole foreign policy," he said. American ambassador James Collins, 61, on Sunday, got a special birthday handshake from Putin and a bouquet of flowers.
Earlier, when Clinton was being driven past the American Embassy, a presidential look-alike stood in front of the building with a missile-shaped toy cigar in his mouth and miniature paper rockets in his hands. The man in the Clinton mask was among 25 members of Greenpeace who protested the U.S. plan to build a limited antimissile defense system.
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