There is little hope for progress on nuclear negotiations with Iran among European Union diplomats as France, Germany and the United Kingdom prepared to resume the stalled talks tomorrow in Vienna, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 19).
One diplomat said the discussions would most likely be “exploratory talks” aimed at setting up a more formal meeting next month. Another diplomat was more pointed. “It’s going to be an opportunity to see really whether there’s anything left to talk about,” the diplomat said (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Dec. 19). An impasse in this week’s talks could lead to a renewed effort by Brussels and Washington to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, Agence France-Presse reported. Iran, meanwhile, has warned it would retaliate to referral by immediately resuming uranium enrichment. Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said yesterday that the EU talks would have to focus on ways to ensure that “Iran’s enrichment is not diverted” to weapons efforts. Iran’s enrichment suspension should be lifted as soon as possible, said Hossein Entezami, a spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council (Agence France-Presse I/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 20). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday reaffirmed her support for EU diplomatic efforts with Iran, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse I/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 19). In Moscow, Russian officials have not found any indications of Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons, the head of the nation’s Foreign Intelligence Service told Interfax yesterday. “We attentively observe what is going on around Iran and report on this to our leadership. … At the moment we have no information to suggest Iran is developing nuclear weapons,” Sergei Lebedev said (Agence France-Presse II/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 19). Meanwhile, diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said that Tehran is already preparing to resume uranium enrichment. One diplomat said Iran has continued to make parts for advanced P-2 centrifuges. “Production has continued without interruption ever since this capability was acquired,” the diplomat told AFP. An Iranian diplomat said this was “not true, not yet” but admitted that “Iran has the capacity to make P-2 centrifuges.” The first diplomat said Iran was producing centrifuges at military installations, which “do not come under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards, and Iran has not declared all these parts.” The agency does not “have a clue” what Iran is doing at those military sites, said a diplomat from a member state of the agency’s Board of Governors. “Iran has the machine tools to enable them to churn out many P-2 centrifuges a day, and the IAEA would have no idea,” the diplomat said. Research and development in enrichment “is indeed the key phrase, and conceivably Iran’s strategy is to secure Europe’s agreement to engage in R and D,” the first diplomat said. The diplomat added that Iran was working on an incremental approach to winning acceptance of its enrichment activities, as Tehran did with conversion. Nonproliferation expert David Albright said that running a cascade of centrifuges would help Iran “work out other major (technical) problems.” “You don’t want Iran to start running cascades because the question then is, once they’ve started, can you get them to back down?” Albright said (Agence France-Presse III/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 19). U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s most recent anti-Israel rhetoric has demonstrated why Tehran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, AFP reported. “People know that an Iran with the capacity to manufacture a nuclear weapon is not in the world’s interest. That’s universally accepted,” Bush said. “And that should be accepted universally, particularly after what the president recently said about the desire to annihilate, for example, an ally of the United States,” he said. “We cannot allow the Iranians to have the capacity to enrich (uranium),” Bush added (Agence France-Presse IV/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 19).
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The United States should enter into direct talks with Iran in a bid to temper Tehran’s determination to obtain a nuclear weapon, Turkey's ambassador here said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 19). Ambassador Faruk Logoglu said in a speech at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies that Iranian talks with European Union representatives France, Germany and the United Kingdom are unlikely to end the nuclear standoff. “This probably represents the most intractable challenge of the period ahead,” he said. “My view is that Iran and Iranians are irreversibly bent on having their nuclear bomb.” The United States, however, could offer direct relations with Iran as a “carrot” to spur progress in negotiations, the ambassador said. “This is not likely to happen in 2006,” he acknowledged. Foundation for Middle East Peace President Philip Wilcox, speaking after Logoglu, echoed the ambassador’s position. “This is a matter of strategic interest to the United States. We need to be part of that process,” said the retired U.S. diplomat, whose last assignment abroad was as consul general in Jerusalem. Logoglu addressed a host of subjects related to the Middle East and terrorism in the year ahead. He said the world's countries should cooperate on terrorism response in a more focused, sustained manner, rather than coming together briefly after large-scale attacks, as he said countries do now. International terrorism response “is still event-oriented and not process-oriented or sustained,” he said. The Turkish envoy also called for a universal definition of terrorism to help countries work together in combating the threat. Wilcox said that in order to defuse Islamist terrorism, the United States should step up efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It is still the central issue that divides us from that vast area of the world,” he said. He called it a “mistake” to focus instead on Iraq, Iran and the “global war on terrorism.”
India is expected to detail to the United States this week plans to separate its nuclear and civilian nuclear sites in order to facilitate a nuclear technology sharing agreement between the two countries, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 15). The plan is expected to be presented at a meeting of the Nuclear Working Group, which begins tomorrow. A final version of the proposal is not expected to come out of the two-day meeting, according to AFP. An Indian official told the Times of India newspaper that the number of plants New Delhi is proposing be placed under International Atomic Energy Agency watch will satisfy the White House. A U.S. official said the deal is not expected to be done when President George W. Bush visits India early next year. “This deal has a lot of moving parts, it takes time to be negotiated,” said the official (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 20). Meanwhile, Canada yesterday asked India to give IAEA inspectors access to a reactor where much of India’s weapon-grade plutonium is produced, Reuters reported. India’s failure to allow agency inspectors access to the Canadian-supplied Cirus reactor has slowed implementation of the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement, according to Reuters. Lawmakers and experts in the United States are troubled by the reactor. The United States has supplied the reactor with heavy water needed to control nuclear fission. The reactor is “embedded in the nuclear weapons program of India” and should be separated from the Indian military, said Leonard Spector of the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies. David Albright, former agency inspector, said that about 25 percent of India’s weapon-grade plutonium comes from Cirus. He said this is a “significant amount … so this is a real issue.” The Institute for Science and International Security, the group Albright heads, released a report yesterday detailing India’s nuclear facilities and their civilian and military roles (Reuters/New York Times, Dec. 19).
North Korea announced today that it plans to begin a light-water reactor construction project, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Dec. 19). Pyongyang said it would “start developing and building LWRs (light-water reactors) of Korean style in reliance upon its indigenous technology and potential when an appropriate time comes to put further spurs to its peaceful nuclear activities.” However, South Korean experts have expressed skepticism about North Korea’s ability, both technically and financially, to develop light-water reactors, said Chon Hyun-joon of the Korea Institute for National Unification. The official Korean Central News Agency also reported that Pyongyang plans to restart work on two graphite-moderated reactors that were frozen following approval of the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea was to receive a light-water reactor. The graphite-moderated reactors could produce 200 kilograms of plutonium annually through spent fuel, enough material for 30 nuclear weapons (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Dec. 20). Meanwhile, U.S. policy toward North Korea appears to have hardened once more, with the focus shifting from diplomacy to containing Pyongyang by thwarting its illicit financial dealings, the Financial Times reported today. “It’s hard to find people who are optimistic now,” said Bruce Klingner, Korea analyst at the Eurasia Group. “I think the window of optimism closed in September.” Analysts have said that the tougher approach, driven by Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph and Vice President Dick Cheney, is based on the belief that regime change is the only way to end the threat from North Korea, according to the Times. Charles Pritchard, an analyst at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. envoy to talks with North Korea, said earlier this month that Washington was pursuing two policy tracks simultaneously, with the hard-liners in one camp and moderates led by Undersecretary of State Christopher Hill in the other. “The most chilling aspect of this re-emerged bifurcation of U.S. policy towards North Korea is the potential that Ambassador Hill has lost a skirmish or two within the administration, and in an effort to maintain his goal of best-effort negotiating, he has had to adopt some of the philosophy and language of the second-track advocates [led by Joseph],” Pritchard said (Dinmore/Fifield, Financial Times, Dec. 20). In Washington, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young met with U.S. officials and suggested informal talks among several nations as a way toward resuming formal multilateral disarmament negotiations with North Korea. “We feel that there needs to be a stepping stone in order to move forward” with six-nation talks, Chung said (Associated Press, Dec. 20).
The International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating South Korea’s plans for a spent-fuel processing center, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 23). Seoul is constructing a facility that uses “pyrometallurgical processing” to compress spent fuel from nuclear power reactors and make it less radioactive for storage, a diplomat close to the agency told AFP. “What’s critical in all this is to make sure that when reducing spent fuel that the South Koreans don’t separate out plutonium,” said the diplomat. Another source close to the agency confirmed the investigation into the plant, which is expected to come online in 2007 (Agence France-Presse/ChannelNewsAsia.com, Dec. 19). Seoul today dismissed reports of an investigation, Asia Pulse reported. “The report is inaccurate, and Seoul has not received any questions on this matter from the IAEA,” the Science and Technology Ministry announced in a statement. The pyrometallurgical processing plant is in line with international nonproliferation standards, the ministry said. “South Korea is sticking to its obligations in regard to IAEA nuclear safeguards, and provided the agency with basic blueprints and other relevant data in July 2004,” it said. The agency has, however, sent a fact-finding team to the facility, the ministry added (Asia Pulse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 20).
Russia plans to officially activate its fifth missile regiment armed with Topol-M ICBMs on Saturday, RIA Novosti reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 16). Strategic Missile Forces commander Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov has said that Moscow plans to test-fire five to eight missiles in 2006 and that it would disband several missile units in the Urals and Siberia. Russia disbanded two divisions this year, but formed more than 20 new units, RIA Novosti reported (RIA Novosti, Dec. 19).
Safety and security problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico remain a cause for concern, congressional investigators said in a report released yesterday (see GSN, March 21). “It is clear that safety and security approaches at the laboratory need improvement going forward,” the Government Accountability Office report says. The document quotes a National Nuclear Security Administration official as saying that “the safety culture at the laboratory is not as rigorous” as that of other Energy Department facilities. In July 2004, a general work stoppage began at the facility after two computer disks containing classified information were reported missing and a student was partially blinded by a laser. The disks, however, were later determined never to have existed, according to the Associated Press. The temporary shutdown might have cost up to $370 million, though the exact amount cannot be calculated, the GAO investigation found. The University of California, which manages Los Alamos, estimated the cost at about $121 million, while the National Nuclear Security Administration said it could have been as high as $370 million. University officials said the shutdown allowed them to fine-tune security at the laboratory, AP reported. “We firmly believe that Los Alamos National Laboratory is a safer, stronger and more secure laboratory,” the officials said in a statement yesterday (Jennifer Talhelm, Associated Press, Dec. 19).
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