The White House of the United States on Friday hailed a deal with Russia that has led to converting the equivalent of 10,000 Russian warheads into fuel for power reactors.

"Marking this important nonproliferation milestone underscores the success of US nonproliferation cooperation with Russia in eliminating highly-enriched uranium (HEU) from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads and converting the material to peaceful uses," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

Under a 1993 agreement, Russia agreed to convert 500 metric tons of HEU -- enough for 20,000 weapons -- from Russian weapons into low-enriched uranium, suitable of US civilian reactors, McClellan said.

"Today, at the halfway point of this program, the United States and Russia remain committed to completing the down-blending of the remaining material by 2013," said McClellan.

Source: Xinhua