The United States, working with the United Kingdom and International Atomic Energy Agency, successfully removed highly enriched uranium from a Venezuelan research reactor.

The operation was carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The existence of the highly enriched uranium had long been known, being used in an old RV-1 reactor for research purposes well before the socialist takeover of the country. It ceased operations in 1991 and hasn’t been used since.