By Jim Wurst and Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire
UNITED NATIONS — The 2005 review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty opened this morning with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urging participants to give equal weight to all the pillars of the treaty to secure its survival (see GSN, April 29).
“Some will paint proliferation as a grave threat. Others will argue that existing nuclear arsenals are a deadly danger,” Annan said in his opening remarks. “I challenge you to accept that disarmament, nonproliferation and the right to peaceful uses [of nuclear power] are all valid.” Debate during the review conference is likely to be split between the insistence by some of the nuclear-weapon states, in particular the United States, that the gravest threat the treaty faces comes from cheaters developing nuclear weapons under the cover of civilian nuclear technologies, and leading non-nuclear states that maintain the nuclear powers are not doing enough to fulfill their disarmament obligations. The United States is expected to press for the closing of “loopholes” in civilian nuclear development; the nonaligned nations, while recognizing the dangers, will resist any restrictions that could be seen as denying states access to nuclear technology. “International regimes do not fail because of one breach, however serious or unacceptable,” Annan said. “They fail when many breaches pile one on top of the other, to the point where the gap between promise and performance becomes unbridgeable. As you review the NPT, your urgent task is to narrow that gap.” “The only way to guarantee that [nuclear weapons] will never be used is for our world to be free of such weapons,” Annan said. “Some of the initial steps are obvious,” he said. They include negotiating a treaty to halt production of fissile materials, maintaining the moratorium on nuclear testing pending the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, taking nuclear weapons off alert status, calling on the nuclear powers to give assurances they will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states and reducing nuclear weapons states’ “reliance on nuclear deterrence,” Annan said. All of these steps — while endorsed by the 2000 Review Conference — are now opposed by at least one of the nuclear powers. Annan called on NPT member states to “find durable ways to reconcile the right to peaceful uses [of nuclear energy] with the imperative of nonproliferation.” To this end, he repeated his endorsement of making the Additional Protocol to the IAEA safeguards agreement — which permits more intrusive inspections of suspected nuclear sites — universal and coming to agreement “to create incentives for states to voluntarily forgo the development of fuel cycle facilities.” ElBaradei Presses Nuclear-Armed NationsAdmittedly stepping out of his role as the world’s top nonproliferation official, ElBaradei urged all nuclear-armed nations, including those outside the NPT regime, to move toward relinquishing their nuclear arsenals. “It is not my role to set forth what a disarmament roadmap should look like,” he said, but, “As long as some countries place strategic reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, other countries will emulate them. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking otherwise.” Progress on disarmament would ease the way to demanding that non-nuclear states remain without nuclear weapons, he said. That, ElBaradei reminded delegates, is the fundamental mission of the treaty. Such progress should be possible, ElBaradei said. “It is clear that nuclear-weapon states could make further irreversible reductions in their existing arsenals. In addition, confidence in disarmament commitments clearly would be enhanced if nuclear-weapon states were to take concrete action to reduce the strategic role currently given to nuclear weapons.” As IAEA head, ElBaradei’s mission is not chiefly one of promoting disarmament. “For people who already have a problem with the director general, they will point to his emphasis on disarmament as another sign that he is exceeding his authority,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace. The United States has led a so-far unilateral effort to deny ElBaradei a third term as agency head, but has apparently failed to garner any international support (see GSN, April 28). ElBaradei’s message appeared to depart from the U.S. strategy here, which is expected to emphasize treaty compliance issues and to try to shut down the treaty’s “loopholes,” the ability of nations to build a legal nuclear infrastructure that can easily be converted to produce nuclear-weapon materials. The United States is scheduled to address the conference this afternoon (see related GSN story, today). ElBaradei acknowledged that problem today and called for “better control over proliferation sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle: activities that involve uranium enrichment and plutonium separation.” He repeated his previous proposal for a moratorium on building such facilities, but did not call for a five-year period for the suspension, as he has in the past. The moratorium proposal has found little support, particularly among developing nations, Iran in particular. ElBaradei said, however, that those nations would actually benefit from tighter nonproliferation rules. “There is no incompatibility between tightening controls over the nuclear fuel cycle and expanding the use of peaceful nuclear technology. In fact by reducing the risks of proliferation, we could pave the way for more widespread use of peaceful nuclear applications,” he said. Procedures SetAs expected, Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil was elected president of the conference by acclamation, as were most of the other officers. However, the conference begins without an agenda. Duarte said that in his talks he saw “some progress on narrowing differences” but no consensus. He said the parties are willing to proceed with their work while negotiations over the agenda continue. The issue of North Korea’s withdrawal from the treaty will be avoided with the same procedural maneuver used in the preparatory meetings. In order not to prejudice the six-party talks and “not to open the debate on noncompliance,” Duarte said the North Korean nameplate will be held by him for the duration of the conference. The general debate begins this afternoon and runs through May 11. The conference is scheduled to conclude on May 27.
After another round of Iran-EU talks ended without an agreement, Tehran said Saturday it could restart some uranium enrichment-related activities this week, Reuters reported (see GSN, April 29). “Iran will decide whether to resume its uranium enrichment program this week in Tehran,” the official IRNA news agency quoted chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani as saying. “Iran is unlikely to start enriching uranium at Natanz, but some activities might be resumed next week at Isfahan’s Uranium Conversion Facility complex,” Rohani said. The two sides agreed to resume talks this week in New York during the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, according to Reuters. Iran, however, again accused France, Germany and the United Kingdom of foot-dragging. “The Europeans want the negotiations to take a long time,” Rohani said. “Iran will be prepared to continue nuclear negotiations with the Europeans if it resumes part of its enrichment activities.” Rohani added that the European nations had requested time to look at a proposal under which Tehran would be allowed to continue its nuclear fuel-cycle work under close international supervision. By not resuming actual enrichment, Iran hopes to avoid having its case sent to the U.N. Security Council, said an EU diplomat in Tehran. “They’re calculating that just resuming work at Isfahan will be enough to show its strength and anger to us but not enough for us to send its case to the Security Council,” he said (Paul Hughes, Reuters, April 30). In comments apparently directed at the United States, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that Tehran’s nuclear program was “none of your business,” Agence France-Presse reported. “The shameless arrogance and rudeness has gone so far that it has given rise to such comments that Iran does not need nuclear technology. This is none of your business,” Khamenei said. “You do not have the right to judge if a nation needs nuclear energy or not,” he added, referring to Washington’s argument that oil-rich Iran has no economic need for a nuclear energy program. Khamenei also dismissed EU speculation that a resolution of the nuclear standoff may be possible after the June 17 presidential election, when a more moderate regime, if elected, might be more amenable to a deal. “Anyone who is chosen by this people as the president will not want to move against the national interests, and the people would not allow this either,” he said. “What the U.S. says is ‘submit to our domination, our intervention, our presence and our grip over your country and resources, and if not, we will accuse you of terrorism and of being against human rights,’” said Khamenei (Agence France-Presse/TurkishPress.com, May 1). Meanwhile, a European official warned that Iran was staging a “managed crisis,” the Financial Times reported. “The Iranian negotiators are trying to put pressure on Europe and, at the same time, they are responding to domestic critics of the process. They seem to want a managed crisis, or rather a crisis they think they can manage,” said a senior European diplomat in Tehran. “We said we would continue to examine Iran’s suggestions but we could not treat them as the basis for working towards an agreement,” said the diplomat. The diplomat added that Tehran was risking “brinkmanship” that might hurt the talks, according to the Times (Smyth/Dombey, Financial Times, May 2).
The United States has issued a warning that North Korea could conduct a missile test next month, diplomatic sources at the International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday (see GSN, April 29). The United States informed the agency, Japan and other nations, Agence France-Presse reported. Satellite images and other sources indicate Pyongyang has been preparing for the test since March, sources told the Kyodo news agency. China was informed of the possible test, but has not responded to U.S. requests that it press North Korea to halt its effort, according to Kyodo (Agence France-Presse/NEWS.com.au, April 30). There are no indications that Pyongyang is preparing for a nuclear test, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said today “The government has closely monitored (North Korea) for theoretical possibility, but it has detected no signs of supporting the probability of a nuclear test,” Song, Seoul’s chief negotiator to stalled multilateral talks on the nuclear standoff, told the Yonhap news agency. “The government has never been informed by the United States” (of a possible nuclear test, he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 2). Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Department backed off comments last week by Defense Intelligence Agency chief Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, in which he said North Korea could arm a missile with a nuclear warhead, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. There had been “no new assessment” on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, adding that U.S. intelligence agencies were uncertain whether Pyongyang could arm a missile and strike U.S. targets. While declining to say whether Jacoby made a misstatement, Di Rita added that the DIA head was describing theoretical capabilities. “North Korea has a theoretical capability to produce a warhead and mate it with a missile, but we have no information to suggest they have done so,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Friday evening in a follow-up statement to Jacoby’s comments. Some U.S. officials said Jacoby went too far in his characterization of North Korea’s capabilities. “He went beyond what the intelligence community consensus is,” said one official with access to U.S. assessments on North Korea. Some experts, however, said Jacoby’s remarks reflected assumptions about Pyongyang’s capabilities. “I think that's been the assumption for quite some time,” said Robert Einhorn, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “My guess is this is based on what we know about their missile program, the test we saw seven years ago, and a lot of extrapolation.” Other experts were more skeptical. “I think he misspoke,” said Joseph Cirincione, nonproliferation director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “North Korea does not have a missile that can reach the United States. There is no compelling evidence that they have a nuclear warhead that can be put on any missile,” he said (Miller/Mazzetti, Los Angeles Times, May 1). North Korea on Saturday apparently launched a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan, U.S. officials said. “It appears that there was a test of a short-range missile by the North Koreans and it landed in the Sea of Japan,” White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told CNN’s Late Edition. “We’re not surprised by this. The North Koreans have tested their missiles before.” While Card said there was “increasing evidence” that Pyongyang may be developing a nuclear-capable missile, he added that Washington did not believe Pyongyang was having much success testing multistage rockets. The suspected launch occurred around 8 a.m. Japanese time (2300 GMT), the Kyodo news agency cited unnamed Japanese government sources as saying. Another apparent missile test attempt on Friday failed, according to a senior U.S. official. Saturday’s reported test flight and earlier tests by Pyongyang do not “contradict North Korea’s voluntary moratorium on ballistic missile tests,” said State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the news is worrisome. “It’s additional, very discouraging evidence that this administration’s policy towards North Korea is failing,” he said (Adam Entous, Reuters, May 1). The suspected missile test was not a significant concern for its neighbors, Asian officials said today. “Is this the kind of missile that can carry a nuclear warhead? Not really,” a South Korean official said. Japan had not confirmed whether a launch had occurred, Reuters reported. “At this point, the missile in question is thought to have flown a very short distance and cannot be described as something that immediately has a particular impact on our country’s security,” a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said (Kim/Kitano, Reuters, May 2). Responding to comments U.S. President George W. Bush made last week (see GSN April 29), the North Korean Foreign Ministry announced that Pyongyang “did not expect any solution to the nuclear issue or any progress in the D.P.R.K.-U.S. relations during his term,” AFP reported Pyongyang also called Bush a “hooligan bereft of any personality as a human being, to say nothing of stature as president of a country” (Agence France-Presse/NEWS.com.au, April 30).
Iran plans defend its nuclear program at the review conference beginning today for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, April 29). Led by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, the diplomatic effort is meant to offset a speech today by the U.S. delegation calling for tougher action against Tehran for its nuclear work, according to the Post. Tough rhetoric and provocative actions by North Korea and Iran (see related GSN stories, today) over the weekend indicate issues surrounding those nations’ nuclear programs could dominate the conference, according to the Post. The conference was unlikely to result in any agreements, U.S. officials said. The speech is not expected to address nuclear commitments the United States agreed to at the 2000 review conference, the Post reported. While most experts critical of the U.S. position agree that some aspects of the agreement are outdated, some say a decision to walk away from difficult negotiations entirely would hurt the U.S. position on nuclear proliferation. “If the conference fails and the U.S. is seen as the reason for that failure, it is going to be much harder for the United States to get the international cooperation it needs to deal with Iran, to deal with North Korea and to deal with all the other issues we are concerned about,” said Joseph Cirincione, nonproliferation director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, May 2). A proposal by International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to impose a five-year moratorium on all new uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing efforts is unlikely to succeed, said U.S. officials and diplomats dispatched to the conference (see related GSN story, today). The United States, Iran, Japan and France oppose such a move because it could stand in the way of nuclear power projects, the New York Times reported (David Sanger, New York Times, May 1). If the five declared nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — pledge to make significant steps towards disarmament, other NPT signatories might reach a consensus on punishing treaty violations by Iran and North Korea, diplomats said. “There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be a positive outcome at this conference, including consensus,” one Western diplomat told Reuters (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, May 1). Conference president Sergio Duarte said Friday that many countries hold “their cards close to their chest until they have to take a decision,” leading him to believe that some progress could be expected at the conference. Iranian Foreign Minister Kharazi has scheduled private meetings with IAEA Director General ElBaradei and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, according to Reuters (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, May 2).
The British government has initiated plans to replace its aging arsenal of submarine-launched Trident ICBMs, the London Independent reported today (see GSN, Oct. 3, 2002). “The decision to replace Trident has been taken in principle very recently. U.S. law does not allow the U.S. to build bombs for us. We have to build our own,” a senior defense official said. The Trident is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2024. However, “there is a very long lead time” in developing a new weapon, the official said. The government is hiring physicists and mathematicians to work on a new weapon, the Independent reported. The new missiles would still be placed on submarines, defense experts said. Development is expected to cost $18.5 billion. British Nuclear Fuels is also part of an effort to build a $1.2 billion uranium enrichment site in New Mexico, according to the Independent. Retaining a nuclear deterrent is “just a symbol that Britain is in the big league, but if you need nuclear weapons to be in the big league, it’s no wonder India and others want them,” said former British Cabinet member Clare Short. “I would favor Britain becoming a leader in getting the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty updated and back on course rather than going along with American breaches to it,” she said (see related GSN story, today; Colin Brown, Independent, May 2). British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today his government has not yet decided whether to update its nuclear arsenal, Agence France-Press reported. “A decision has not been taken, but obviously we will have to think about that carefully over the coming years,” Blair said. Blair said last week that maintaining the British nuclear stockpile would be “the right thing,” AFP reported. The United Kingdom has four Trident submarines, each carrying 16 missiles carrying multiple nuclear warheads (Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times, May 2).
Technical troubles with a large X-ray machine at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are expected to delay the U.S. nuclear weapons maintenance effort by five years, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, April 6). The Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrotest Facility is designed to produce X-ray images of mock atomic weapons in the early stages of detonation. Data from the work would help determine the status of nuclear weapons as they age, according to AP. The laboratory hoped to begin collecting data this year. However, problems discovered in 2003 with one of the machine’s X-ray beams will not be corrected until 2008, according to a Government Accountability Office report. It is likely to be 2010 before the machine produces information. In addition, a laser fusion machine also planned for the weapons maintenance effort is six years behind schedule at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, AP reported. Both projects are part of the $5.8 billion Stockpile Stewardship program. The GAO report cites “inadequate project management and technical problems” for the troubles (Associated Press, April 30).
Even as he announced that Japan would resume loans to Pakistan that had been suspended after Islamabad’s 1998 nuclear tests, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed concern Saturday over Pakistan’s role in nuclear proliferation, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, April 8). “In my meeting with President [Gen. Pervez] Musharraf, I told him of Japan’s push for elimination of nuclear weapons and nonproliferation,” Koizumi said. He added that Japan hopes to be kept apprised of Pakistan’s investigation into the underground nuclear network established by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. “Regarding Dr. Khan, I received detailed explanations from President Musharraf and Prime Minister [Shaukat] Aziz,” he said, adding that the Pakistani officials promised to release any new information they obtained. Before Pakistan embarked on nuclear testing, Japan had provided Islamabad with $500 million in annual development aid. “At this time, we have decided to resume yen loans for Pakistan. This is meant to show our resolve to strengthen the friendly bilateral ties in various fields, not just politics and economy,” Koizumi said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 30).
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