Belarus pledged on Wednesday to eliminate stocks of highly enriched uranium by 2012, joining US President Barack Obama's drive to clamp new controls on material used in atomic bombs, the US State Department said.
Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov made the announcement after a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Kazakh capital Astana, where both were attending a summit of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
"The United States intends to provide technical and financial assistance to support the completion of this effort as expeditiously as possible," the State Department said in a statement after the meeting. Belarus said it would aim to complete the process by the next Nuclear Security Summit in South Korea in 2012.