U.S. Ambassador to Russia Outlines Proposals to Prevent Bioterrorism, WMD Proliferation

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

MOSCOW — U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow last week outlined Bush administration proposals to help prevent bioterrorist acts and WMD proliferation (see GSN, April 12).

In an address before a conference hosted by the PIR Center, Vershbow said that recent outbreaks of diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome demonstrate the damage that “exotic diseases” can cause when they occur solely naturally.

“If terrorists were able to harness infectious pathogens, the impact of the attack could be felt around the world — on the life and well-being of our citizens, on trade and travel, on national and international security,” he said.

To address the threat of bioterrorism, the Bush administration has proposed a “plan of action” to the other members of the Group of Eight global economic powers — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, Vershbow said. The administration’s proposal calls for greater cooperation among G-8 members in infectious disease surveillance, the creation of a “clearinghouse” of emergency health response assets and improved protection of the food supply chain, he said.

Russia, with its “vast reservoir of scientific talent,” has the potential to be an “important partner” in the effort against bioterrorism, Vershbow said.

In his speech, Vershbow also addressed the issue of WMD proliferation, saying the United States supports expanding a G-8 effort initiated in 2002 to provide $20 billion over 10 years to fund nonproliferation projects in Russia. While Russia will remain the “priority” of the effort, Vershbow said, the United States also believes that Ukraine “is a natural choice” as the next recipient country for funding (see GSN, April 14).

“We believe that a global problem requires an appropriately global approach,” he said.

Vershbow also called for the expansion of the Proliferation Security Initiative — a U.S.-led effort to interdict shipments of WMD-related cargo. The United States has had “productive conversations” with Russia on the initiative, Vershbow said, and hopes that Moscow would soon join the effort (see GSN, March 19).

While Russia agrees in “principle” with the initiative, there are still concerns as to how the effort relates to international law, Vladimir Novikov of Russia’s Institute for Strategic Studies told Global Security Newswire Wednesday. If the effort is not based in international law, he said, then any intercept operations could be seen as simply acts of piracy by nonmembers.

Russia’s close ties to countries such as China, India and Iran and a current lack of financial resources are also behind Russia’s reluctance to join, Novikov said. He said, though, that once Russia’s concerns are addressed, Moscow would likely join the effort.

“Russia doesn’t want to be first, but doesn’t want to be last [to join],” Novikov said.

In his speech Friday, Vershbow also said that it was important to improve the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ability to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and reiterated several nuclear nonproliferation proposals made by U.S. President George W. Bush in February (see GSN, April 1). For example, Vershbow said that a “flaw” must be corrected in IAEA procedures that enables countries under investigation for alleged safeguards violations to sit on the agency’s Board of Governors, as Iran was allowed to do last year after it acknowledged years of covert nuclear activities.

“No state whose conduct of its safeguards commitments has been found deficient by the board and director general should be allowed to sit in judgment of itself in an organization that relies so heavily on decision by consensus,” Vershbow said.

He also reiterated Bush’s proposal to close a “loophole” in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that the United States has charged allows countries to develop nuclear weapons program under the guise of seeking civilian nuclear power. The White House proposal would call on the 40 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which establishes export control regulations for nuclear trade, to refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing technologies to any country that does not already possess full-scale enrichment and reprocessing plants.

The U.S. proposal preserves the “central bargain” implicit in the treaty that allows any country that renounces nuclear weapons to obtain nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, Vershbow said. Under the Bush proposal, nuclear exporters would be “committed” to ensuring that countries had “reliable access, at reasonable cost” to civilian nuclear power plant fuel as long as they renounced possessing their own enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, he said.

“Let us avoid getting tangled in unhelpful distinctions between the nuclear ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ For such distinctions miss the larger and more important point — that we all share an overriding common interest in halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction,” Vershbow said.

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