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G-8 Approves Nonproliferation Plan; Calls for End to Iranian, North Korean Nuclear Programs By Mike Nartker SAVANNAH, Ga. — Leaders of the Group of Eight economic powers yesterday approved a nonproliferation action plan that calls on Iran and North Korea to end their suspected nuclear weapons efforts (see GSN, June 9). The leaders of the G-8, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, are meeting for the organization’s annual summit this week at Sea Island, Ga., off the coast of Savannah. Their nonproliferation plan notes the progress Iran has made in cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s efforts to investigate Tehran’s nuclear program. They expressed concern, though, that Iran was not fully abiding by its pledge to freeze uranium enrichment activities and criticized Tehran’s lack of full cooperation with the agency. In addition, the action plan calls on Iran to “promptly and fully” comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, including the ratification and implementation of the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which allows the agency to conduct more intrusive monitoring of a country’s nuclear efforts. The issue of Iran’s nuclear program was also a topic of discussion during a bilateral meeting Tuesday between U.S. President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Germany, along with France and the United Kingdom, reached a deal last year with Iran, under which Tehran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment activities in return for the possible exchange of civilian nuclear technology. During his meeting Tuesday with Bush, however, Schroeder expressed “skepticism” about Iran’s nuclear intention, a U.S. senior administration official said. “I think it’s fair to characterize the chancellor’s view as being somewhat skeptical in a general way,” the senior administration official said Tuesday. In an interview with Global Security Newswire on the sidelines of the summit, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said yesterday that over the past two years Russia moved from denying Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons intentions to acknowledging that Tehran may harbor such plans. Russia is constructing a nuclear power reactor for Iran at the city of Bushehr — a project the United States has criticized over possible proliferation concerns (see GSN, June 9). As for the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the G-8 action plan calls on North Korea to end its suspected nuclear weapons efforts “in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.” The G-8 leaders also expressed support for using the six-party talks, which involve China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States, as a means for resolving the crisis (see GSN, June 9). The language in this year’s G-8 action plan regarding Iran and North Korea strongly echoes the wording used in last year’s G-8 action plan, approved during a summit in France. In its 2003 nonproliferation action plan, the G-8 leaders also called for Pyongyang to “visibly, verifiably and irreversibly” end its nuclear efforts, and called on Iran to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. While this year’s G-8 summit seemingly focused less on nonproliferation than the 2003 session, the action plan released yesterday also addresses a number of broader WMD proliferation issues. Following a proposal made by Bush earlier this year, the G-8 leaders agreed to a one-year freeze on new exports of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities to countries that do not already possess them, and also called on other non-G-8 members to follow suit. The freeze is intended to temporarily address a perceived loophole in the nuclear nonproliferation regime that allows countries to develop nuclear weapons programs under the guise of seeking civilian nuclear programs. In addition, the G-8 leaders agreed to work by the end of next year to establish the Additional Protocol as an “essential new standard” in nuclear supply agreements, to establish a special committee in the IAEA Board of Governors responsible for strengthened safeguards and verification and that countries facing IAEA investigation should not be allowed to participate in the agency’s board or the new committee regarding their own investigations. The action plan also endorses the expansion of the Proliferation Security Initiative — a U.S.-led effort launched last year to interdict WMD-related cargo shipments — to also target proliferation financiers and middlemen, as well as illicit manufacturing plants that produce WMD-related materials. According to the plan, several G-8 members have begun developing measures to deny access to ports and airports to suspect companies and to impose visa bans on individuals involved in illicit WMD-related trade. The G-8 leaders further vowed in the action plan to “recommit” themselves to pledging the full $20 billion under the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, an effort launched in 2002 to help fund nonproliferation projects, primarily in Russia. The current level of pledged funding stands at about $17 billion. In addition, the action plan announces the addition of seven new donor countries to the effort. Besides nuclear weapons, the action plan addresses the threat of biological terrorism. The G-8 leaders agreed to implement several measures to help improve biological defenses, including new surveillance capabilities, improved protection and response capabilities, improved protection of the global food supply and strengthened efforts to investigate possible biological weapons attacks and suspicious outbreaks of disease. In addition, the action plans calls on all countries to join the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. It also expresses the G-8’s support for U.N. Resolution 1540, which calls on countries to criminalize WMD proliferation and to establish effective national export control systems.
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