Washington

A US-funded scheme to turn the secret cities that developed Russia's nuclear arsenal into commercial centres could come to end this September.

Officials at the US Department of Energy (DOE), which runs the scheme, say that the Nuclear Cities Initiative must close unless Russia accepts liability for American workers and companies on the project. But arm-controls experts charge that this is a convenient excuse used to kill a programme that is unpopular with the Bush administration.

The scheme, which was born in 1998 and currently consumes around US$15 million in funds annually, has been hampered by problems. Some Russian weapons centres have been reluctant to grant access to their sites, and a 1999 report by the US General Accounting Office said that too little money was reaching Soviet scientists.

Despite this, the initiative has support within the arms-control community, as it is the only US programme aimed at converting weapons facilities to civilian uses. The scheme has had some early successes, such as the shutdown of a nuclear warhead production plant in the formerly closed Russian city of Sarov.

But on 22 July, US energy secretary Spencer Abraham told Alexander Rumyantsev, Russia's atomic-energy minister, that he will not renew the agreement when it expires in September. In a statement, Abraham said the scheme could not continue unless Russia agreed to accept legal liability for US companies and scientists working in the cities, including protection from prosecution in the event of an accident. The Russian parliament is currently in recess and is unlikely to to address the issue before the September deadline has passed.

Supporters of the programme question the administration's motives. “The liability issue is a red herring,” says Rose Gottemoeller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, who led the DOE's non-proliferation bureau under the Clinton administration. Gottemoeller points out that the Bush administration tried to cut the programme in 2001, but that funding was restored after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

US energy undersecretary Robert Card says that the DOE will back currently funded projects to completion.

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