U.S. Envoy Urges Malaysia to Improve Export Rules

The United States urged Malaysia today to tighten export controls in a push to crack down on nuclear trafficking, following a scandal involving a Malaysian company that manufactured uranium enrichment components for Libya, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 27).

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation John Wolf held discussions with two top Malaysian officials today in Putrajaya, the country’s administrative capital, officials said. 

Malaysian officials said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would not meet with Wolf. Badawi’s son owns a controlling stake in the company accused of manufacturing parts for Libya. Malaysian police cleared Scomi Precision Engineering of wrongdoing, saying company officials believed the centrifuge parts were being built for the oil-and-gas industry.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, one of the officials who met with Wolf today, played down the incident.

“The whole thing is over already. Whatever had been needed to be done has been done. There has been full disclosure and a lot of transparency,” he said. “It is no longer an issue,” he added.

Syed Hamid also said Malaysia does not now “see any necessity” to sign the Additional Protocol to its nuclear safeguards agreement, which would allow international inspectors more freedom to investigate illicit nuclear activities in Malaysia.

U.S. officials are urging Malaysia to take a harder line on the spread of nuclear technology.

“Assistant Secretary Wolf will be seeking to increase the existing cooperation between the U.S. and Malaysia on nonproliferation,” said U.S. Embassy spokesman Frank Whitaker.

Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, the middleman accused in the Libya deal and whom U.S. President George W. Bush has called the “chief financial officer and money launderer” of the recently exposed nuclear smuggling network, remains free in Malaysia because local law enforcement officials say he violated no Malaysian laws (Patrick McDowell, Associated Press, March 2).

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