A diplomatic cable that became public in September 2011 describes the efforts of the U.S. GTRI program to remove nuclear materials from Italy. According to the cable, in 2008 the United States and Italy discussed "possible disposition of Italian nuclear 'gap' material through the U.S. Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI)."

During the negotiations, the Italian partner, a government-owned Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari (SOGIN), provided an inventory of all fissile material under its control that was formerly owned by the Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA). The cable notes that the data presented by SOGIN "do not reflect all special nuclear material present in Italy, nor all nuclear material under the control of SOGIN."

According to the SOGIN data, in 2008 the ex-ENEA fissile material included 18875.8 g of unirradiated and 100185.9 g of irradiated HEU as well as 9155.9 g of unirradiated and 4791.3 g of irradiated plutonium. Of these amounts, 3176.4 g of unirradiated plutonium was physically located at the AECL facility in Canada.