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ElBaradei Eyes Fuel-Supply Assurance by Next Year By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — An agreement for a mechanism to assure countries of a nuclear-fuel supply while taking proliferation-sensitive elements of the fuel cycle out of their hands could be in place by next year, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said here today (see GSN, Nov. 4). The assurance-of-supply arrangement would be the crucial first step in a new system limiting the spread of uranium-enrichment and plutonium-separation technology, said the director general, who along with his agency won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. “You are taking away a justification for countries to say, ‘I would like to make my own fuel,’” ElBaradei said at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference. Instead of delivering his prepared remarks from the podium at this morning’s conference opening, ElBaradei sat on stage and was interviewed by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Nonproliferation Director Joseph Cirincione. ElBaradei called for a process containing four components: the assurance of supply, a moratorium on new enrichment and reprocessing facilities and the creation of both a nuclear fuel multilateral reprocessing and disposal system and a multilateral enrichment and fuel-production arrangement. The first step, he said, appears to be gaining traction: The United States this year said it would make available 17.4 metric tons of highly enriched uranium for downblending into fuel to be used in an international “fuel bank,” and Russia has indicated it plans to follow suit. “I need to look at the big picture,” ElBaradei said. “I need to see how verification is really helping to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The real 800-pound gorilla that I see is this whole question [of the fuel cycle]. We need to revisit this whole framework of using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” Asked by U.S. State Department nuclear-verification specialist Sally Horn about new nonproliferation commitments from states and new powers for the agency under a fuel-bank setup, ElBaradei said the deal would be a voluntary one based on benefits for all parties, not on any legal authority. New nonproliferation commitments by nonweapon states are not the point of the plan, ElBaradei said, because “the proliferation dimension of it [nuclear power] would be taken away” while the deal was in force. “They would not have access to … highly enriched uranium or plutonium that could go into nuclear weapons,” he said. At the same time, he conceded, countries could choose to go back on their commitment not to expand fuel-cycle capabilities if they were not receiving a fuel supply. “I am not asking any country to give up any rights. … You keep your rights. You simply exercise self-restraint,” ElBaradei said. “This is part of a package.” ElBaradei touched on a myriad of topics in his exchange with Cirincione and during subsequent questioning from the audience. The director general proclaimed himself “delighted” by the recent U.S. congressional move to withhold funding for a nuclear “bunker-buster” study (see GSN, Nov. 4). ElBaradei called for “creative” ways to get India, Pakistan and Israel involved in the international nonproliferation regime, while calling it unlikely the three nuclear-armed states would ever formally join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Addressing Cirincione’s remark that the agency “got it right” on Iraq by affirming before the U.S. invasion that there was no evidence Baghdad was resuming nuclear-weapon programs, ElBaradei portrayed the assessment as a straightforward and apolitical one. “I simply was reading the data that we were getting,” he said. “I simply was heeding the advice that we were getting from the experts on the ground.” Asked about decade-old international discussions on whether to begin negotiations on a treaty cutting off new production of fissile material, ElBaradei became animated. “It’s absolutely ridiculous that we’re spending 10 years doing [this] kabuki dance,” he said. “For God’s sake, let’s start a negotiation.”
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