Nuclear “Fuel Bank” Advances, Top U.S. Official Says

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States is increasing efforts to set up a nuclear “fuel bank” intended to dissuade additional countries from embarking on proliferation-sensitive fuel-production activities, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph said here yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 7).

The idea was a hot topic on the first day of the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference: Joseph’s lunchtime remarks followed a morning presentation in which International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei extolled the virtues of a fuel-bank system and suggested the system’s framework could be in place next year.

“The United States is now working with supplier states and the IAEA to develop a mechanism,” Joseph said. “This is something that we have as an administration made a priority recently.”

The U.N. nuclear agency under the proposal would serve in what Joseph called an “intermediary” role in fuel exchanges between nuclear haves and have-nots. The approach would assure nuclear fuel for the energy programs of countries without fuel-production facilities in return for their commitment not to seek uranium-enrichment or plutonium-separation technology.

The United States in September offered 17 metric tons of highly enriched uranium to be blended down into reactor fuel for the system (see GSN, Sept. 27). Joseph said the United States would hold the uranium “in reserve,” adding, “We encourage other supplier states to create such reserves as well.”

Joseph dismissed a questioner’s suggestion that non-nuclear-weapon countries would require not just fuel assurances but also new disarmament commitments by nuclear powers in exchange for a commitment to forgo pursuit of enrichment and reprocessing technology. The undersecretary said the United States complies with its commitment to work toward disarmament under Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“I think Article 6 needs to progress as it has, and I think the United States has a very good record on Article 6,” he said.

Joseph listed what he saw as the main motivations for Libya’s decision in 2003 to give up its WMD programs, a subject he was researching before President George W. Bush tapped him early this year to replace now-U.N. Ambassador John Bolton in the State Department post.

Joseph portrayed Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi’s decision as a complex one that was based in part on Qadhafi’s fear that Libya could soon meet with the same fate as Iraq, which the United States had recently invaded.

“The fact that we were deploying hundreds of thousands of forces to the region … had to have an impact,” Joseph said.

Other motivations, he said, included a desire to have long-standing sanctions lifted; a new general view of WMD programs as a detriment to, rather than an enhancement of, Libya’s security; the U.S.-spearheaded interception of the BBC China in 2003 as it carried nuclear-centrifuge parts to Libya; fear that Islamic extremists could threaten the Libyan government; and Qadhafi’s desire to leave a “legacy” that included renouncing weapons of mass destruction.

The first lesson of the Libyan saga, Joseph said, is that “you have to project a sense of seriousness in combating weapons of mass destruction.” He also named the importance of secrecy in negotiations and the need to ensure a “win-win” outcome as lessons for future such cases.

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