International investigators have concluded that a 1987 meeting in Dubai between Iranian officials and members of the underground nuclear network established by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan launched both Tehran’s nuclear program and the Khan network, the Washington Post reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 25). Iran is believed to have acquired centrifuge blueprints and a starter kit for uranium enrichment, the Post reported. “The offer is the strongest indication to date that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, but it doesn’t prove it completely,” said one Western diplomat. Recently, however, Iranian officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency that the country had declined the opportunity to purchase more sensitive atomic weapons components at the time. Evidence indicates, however, that Iran may have acquired some items elsewhere, officials said. Investigators for the U.N. nuclear watchdog believe Iran outmaneuvered Khan and his associates by purchasing many components and technology at lower prices from European, Russian and Chinese dealers during the early 1990s, according to the Post Inspectors began pursuing information on the 1987 offer in November, according to the Post (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Feb. 27). Meanwhile, Russia and Iran signed a deal Sunday for Moscow to supply nuclear fuel for the operation of the Bushehr reactor, Reuters reported. “This is a very important incident in the ties between the two countries and in the near future a number of Russian experts will be sent to Bushehr to equip the power station,” Iranian state television quoted Alexander Rumyantsev, head of Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency, as saying. Under the agreement, Iran must repatriate all spent nuclear fuel to Russia to ensure it is not used for weapons purposes. International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said inspectors would “monitor closely the use of the fuel and where it goes.” Rumyantsev said Bushehr would go online in late 2006. “We are planning the physical launch at the end of 2006. About half a year before this the first delivery of fuel will take place,” ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying. U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the United States and the European Union should, in reaction to Russia’s decision, seek to exclude Moscow from the expected July summit of the world’s eight leading industrialized nations. “The United States and our European allies should start out by saying, ‘Vladimir, you’re not welcome at the next G-8 conference,’” said McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin (Reuters, Feb. 27). Bushehr could produce enough plutonium for 30 bombs per year, experts have said, the Associated Press reported today (Associated Press/NewsFromRussia.com, Feb. 28). The United States is considering joining the European Union in offering incentives to Iran in exchange for a statement from Tehran renouncing any intentions to develop a nuclear weapon, according to senior U.S. officials, the Post reported today. U.S. President George W. Bush met Friday with principal members of his foreign policy team to discuss requests made by European leaders. The White House wants to move quickly to finalize a list of incentives, officials said. “The reason we’re comfortable considering this tactically is because strategically, when the president was in Europe, he found them solid on the big issue: that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” said a senior State Department official. Following Bush’s re-election late last year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair encouraged Bush to join or endorse the European negotiations, according to U.S. and European sources. “He said, ‘Even if you stand apart, take an approach that is seen as reinforcing what we’re doing, give the impression that you’re empowering us,’” said another U.S. official. The White House is not looking at major incentives, U.S. and European officials said. They could include considering Iran for membership in the World Trade Organization. “The kind of [economic and political] changes required for membership in the World Trade Organization are very much what we’d want to see anyway,” the State Department official said. “So it’s not giving Iran something. It’s making clear this could lead to that, if they comply” (Robin Wright, Washington Post, Feb. 28). The United States is willing to allow the European nations to negotiate with Iran until June before seeking referral to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. diplomatic documents show, according to Reuters. According to a paper circulated Thursday by U.S. officials to members of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, Washington will not pressure the agency to refer Iran’s case to the U.N. Security Council this week. If no progress in the European negotiations is seen by the next Board of Governors meeting in June, however, the Washington plans to pursue Security Council referral, according to the document. In addition, the United States wants agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to report again on Iran’s nuclear program before the June meeting. “We believe it is essential that the director general provide to the board in advance of the June board meeting another comprehensive written report describing in full the IAEA’s inspection activities in Iran,” the document says. “The board in June must then be prepared to take further action as needed” (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Feb. 25). Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani said reports that Iran has built underground tunnels in which to protect its nuclear technology from a potential attack “could be true” “From the moment the Americans threaten to attack our nuclear sites, what are we to do? We have to put them somewhere,” Rohani told France’s Le Monde newspaper. Rohani did not seem reassured by U.S. President Bush’s statement last week that speculation about a U.S. attack was “simply ridiculous.” Bush “immediately added that all options were open. So the second phrase neutralizes the first,” Rohani said, according to AP. Rohani was optimistic, however, that a negotiated settlement with the European Union would be reached soon. “We are confident that we will, through positive measures from all sides, see positive results in March,” he said. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, however, said “the positions of the two sides are complex and difficult to bridge” (Associated Press/USA Today, Feb. 25). German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he was satisfied with Bush’s remarks last week that Washington was not planning to attack Iran, AP reported. “[Bush] said the words ‘Iran is not Iraq’ deliberately — no one, and that includes the American government, is thinking of military action against Tehran,” Schroeder said in an interview published in Friday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (Associated Press/Khaleej Times, Feb. 26). Iran has finished processing a batch of uranium begun prior to a November nuclear freeze agreement with the European Union, diplomats said, according to AFP. The freeze, which Tehran agreed to in a deal with the European Union, began on Nov. 22. However, Iran needed to finish processing uranium ore that had been introduced into fragile uranium conversion machines ahead of the suspension. “Iran stopped making UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) a week ago,” said one diplomat. Iran was processing a total of 37 tons of uranium yellowcake ore into UF4, the precursor to UF6 gas, under IAEA supervision. Another diplomat said the agency has “under seal all the UF4 that was produced” at the Isfahan facility (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 26).
By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire
VIENNA — The top international nuclear inspections official today pressed Iran to improve its efforts to disclose its past and present nuclear activities (see GSN, Feb. 16). The call for more transparency followed weekend reports that Iran in 1987 rejected an opportunity to purchase nuclear weapons technology from the nuclear smuggling network that was once led by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see related GSN story, today). Iran must “go out of its way to bring these issues to a close,” said International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. He spoke to reporters before entering a quarterly meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors. In that meeting, ElBaradei chided Tehran for creating a “confidence deficit,” and said “it is therefore essential that Iran works closely with the agency in a proactive manner in order for us to build the necessary confidence,” according to statement released later. Nevertheless, he expressed appreciation for the information Iran has offered since February 2003, when Tehran publicly disclosed that it had concealed an extensive nuclear research program for nearly two decades. Iran’s decision to go public — and to allow the agency to examine what Tehran says is its complete nuclear complex — has resulted in a steady flow of new reports for the agency to analyze. “We are moving forward, we are making progress,” ElBaradei told reporters. As the agency board meets this week, Iran’s nuclear activities are expected to dominate the substantive discussion, although the board is unlikely to issue a formal statement or decision. For the time being the agency and its board are content to allow more time for European nations to negotiate a deal with Iran on its nuclear program. Those talks received a boost following U.S. President George W. Bush’s European visit last week, when he reportedly agreed to consider U.S. participation in an incentives package for Iran in exchange for Tehran ending any potential weapons work (see related GSN story, today). Such a U.S. policy would represent a significant change of course for the Bush administration, which has so far completely avoided the European-Iranian negotiations by refusing to talk with Iran directly or even discuss the talks with EU allies. The new policy could reflect the administration’s acceptance of a more pragmatic strategy, said a Western diplomat. “It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s livable,” he said. “What choice do we really have?” Other IAEA BusinessThis week’s meeting is also expected to address two other less urgent issues: Egypt’s past nuclear activities and ElBaradei’s pursuit of a third term leading the agency. In a report issued to the board earlier this month, ElBaradei outlined a series of low-level nuclear activities in Egypt that he said should have been reported to the agency (see GSN, Feb. 14). The activities included apparent research into aspects of developing uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies. Egyptian scientists conducted some of the experiments as recently as 2003, ElBaradei’s report says, concluding that “the agency has identified a number of failures by Egypt to report to the agency.” The board is expected this week to issue a reprimand to Egypt along the lines of its November response to similar transgressions committed by South Korea (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2004). In addition, the board is expected to discuss ElBaradei’s candidacy for a third term. The United States, which believes that ElBaradei has not been tough enough on nations such as Iran and Iraq, has conducted a campaign opposing ElBaradei’s election, including an apparently unfruitful effort to tap his phones to uncover unsavory information (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004). Such efforts have so far produced little support for the U.S. position, though the IAEA board has yet to endorse ElBaradei. Board members are expected to discuss the issue further this week, but probably not reach a final decision.
Current and former U.S. officials have said that despite knowing of the nuclear smuggling activities of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, U.S. intelligence agencies for years opposed moving against him, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 18). The risks posed by the delay were demonstrated by the fact that nuclear warhead plans provided to Libya by Khan have been found to be more detailed than previously thought, according to the Times. The plans were provided to Tripoli at least 18 months after U.S. and British intelligence determined that Khan was operating an international nuclear network and that Libya was one of its customers, according to U.S. officials and a British assessment. Some officials said, though, that intelligence on Khan’s activities was too limited to act effectively, the Times reported. “The debate was, do you stop it now or do you watch it and understand it better so that you are in a stronger position to pull it up by the roots later? The case for waiting prevailed,” said former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation Robert Einhorn. Others, though, criticized the delay in moving against Khan. “I don’t see what was gained by waiting,” said George Perkovich, a nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Iran got centrifuge equipment and knowledge at the very least, and possibly a weapons design. We don’t even know what North Korea got.” European investigators and customs officials have said that there are indications that Pakistan may now be using the network orchestrated by Khan to acquire materials for a new generation of uranium enrichment centrifuges. “With Pakistan today, it’s hard to know how much they need, but already a couple of items have been stopped very recently, including a shipment of high-strength aluminum for centrifuges,” an investigator said (Douglas Frantz, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 27).
Representatives from Japan, South Korea and the United States said they are ready to address North Korea’s concerns if it agreed to return to six-party talks on its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 25). “We urge the North to return to the talks without delay, and stressed that the talks are a forum to discuss all issues, including North Korea’s concerns,” said South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon after meeting with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Japanese Foreign Ministry Director General Kenichiro Sasae. Song would not say whether the allies would offer Pyongyang concessions for resuming negotiations (Jack Kim, Reuters, Feb. 26). Song said today the format of the stalled talks could be changed to accommodate North Korea, Reuters reported. “We indicated that the wide-ranging forum of discussions can incorporate the positions of both sides, combine them,” Song told KBS radio. “What we mean by a wide-ranging forum of discussions is that it would include the format that North Korea wants,” Song said, adding that there would be no separate bilateral talks between the United States and North Korea. Pyongyang could, however, be offered more opportunities to meet with U.S. officials on the sidelines of the talks, analysts said (Jack Kim, Reuters, Feb. 28). North Korea told South Korea late this month it would return to talks in June and offer to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for economic aid and a U.S. pledge not to invade, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported, citing Japanese sources. South Korean and Japanese officials denied the report, according to Agence France-Presse. “The report is not true. If it had been true, we would have aggressively made it public,” said a South Korean Foreign Ministry official. “I have not heard anything about it,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said of the report (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Feb. 28). North Korea expert Douglas Shin said Pyongyang could be seeking up to $10 billion in compensation for abandoning its nuclear program, Reuters reported (Jon Herskovitz, Reuters, Feb. 27). Meanwhile, Chinese officials have privately acknowledged that they agree with U.S. allegations that Pyongyang has a covert uranium-based nuclear program, according to sources cited by the Asahi Shimbun, the Xinhua news agency reported today. “We have come to share the same understanding (as the United States),” a source close to the six-party talks quoted Chinese officials as saying as early as the third round of talks, held in June. Prior to that time, China had remained publicly skeptical of the existence of the program, according to Xinhua (Xinhua, Feb. 28). An international consortium is willing to resume supplying North Korea with energy if Pyongyang resumes six-party talks, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported today, according to Xinhua. “The [Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization] will consider resuming heavy oil shipment if the North returns to the six-way talks, addresses the issue of highly enriched uranium and puts reactors which it said has resumed operations into surveillance again,” Kim Young-mok, a South Korean deputy executive director for the consortium, was quoted as saying (Xinhua II, Feb. 28). Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, China’s chief delegate to six-party talks, is expected to travel Wednesday to South Korea, AFP reported. He is scheduled to meet with Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik and Deputy Foreign Minister Song, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced today (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 28).
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Citing remarks by U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei, an antinuclear umbrella group called Friday on France to prevent semigovermental firm Areva from building a planned uranium enrichment plant in southeastern France (see GSN, Oct. 15, 2003). The nuclear company’s Cogema branch plans in 2007 to begin phasing out an existing gaseous diffusion-based plant in Pierrelatte and to begin operating the new centrifuge-based facility. Areva public relations documents indicate the company expects to complete the gradual replacement operation by 2020. “This plant, called Georges Besse II, is to use the highly proliferating technique of centrifugation (100,000 centrifuges in batteries),” said the 700-group umbrella body, Sortir du Nucleaire. “Areva thinks itself reassuring when it specifies that to prevent theft of such coveted equipment, the machines will arrive in Pierrelatte in separate parts and be assembled under police surveillance.” Issuing its appeal just before the current International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors meeting, the activist group noted proliferation concerns over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. It cited IAEA head ElBaradei’s calls on countries to consider a five-year moratorium on new fuel-cycle activities when they gather in May at a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference. “Just weeks before the renegotiation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Sortir du Nucleaire network asks the French government to support the International Atomic Energy Agency director general’s proposal by making Areva, in which it [the government] is the majority stockholder, cancel construction of the Georges Besse II enrichment plant,” the group said. In response to the activists’ position, Areva said ElBaradei’s proposal applies to new production capacity and that any moratorium enacted should not affect the company’s replacement operation, which would simply maintain capacity at Pierrelatte. “The future Areva Georges Besse II plant would simply replace the current Eurodif plant, which is to cease production by 2013,” said an Areva spokesman contacted by telephone in Paris. “There is no question of additional production capacity.” According to Areva, the $6.6 billion, three-unit centrifuge plant is to provide fuel for electric companies, as the 25-year-old gaseous diffusion plant does now. France derives most of its electricity supply from nuclear power plants. In documents prepared last year for a public debate on the plan, Areva stressed continuity between the existing plant and its planned replacement. “The Georges Besse II plant will be placed on the Tricastin site, without modifying the existing boundaries. … The Georges Besse II project follows a logic of continuity, expected notably to draw on local knowledge and companies already present on the site. … The expected production capacity is similar to that of the current plant,” Areva said in the documents.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico failed to follow procedures for employees who quit to ensure they could not obtain classified information or nuclear materials after their departure, the U.S. Energy Department’s Inspector General’s Office said Friday (see GSN, Jan. 31). The laboratory violated its own policies for more than 40 percent of 305 former workers surveyed, according to an inspector general’s report. That included failures to conduct security briefings and collect security badges and other laboratory property, the Associated Press reported. Los Alamos spokesman James Rickman said Friday that the facility began reviewing its personnel policies while the inspector general’s investigation was being conducted. The laboratory changed its personnel termination procedures in December, and is now in nearly complete compliance with security procedures, he said (Peter Barnes, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 26).
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