By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The United States and India have not yet resolved a difference over whether an Indian vow to refrain from future nuclear testing should be included in the text of an agreement to open civil nuclear trade, a senior U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, April 7).
India unilaterally vowed to maintain its roughly eight-year moratorium on nuclear testing when President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh first publicly announced the potential deal in July 2005.
Indian officials last week, however, publicly objected to U.S. language in a draft text for the agreement proposed this year reportedly saying India would continue to refrain from testing. U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford, visiting Washington yesterday, said the matter remained under negotiation but could be managed. “It’s a matter to be discussed,” Mulford said, responding to a question following a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. He denied that the difference could be a potential showstopper for the deal. “It’s just a question of time and dedicated effort by the skilled people who are involved on both sides. And as Congress comes to judge this situation, I think they will see that this is really not an issue,” he said. For the deal to go through, the U.S. Congress must waive U.S. export control restrictions on nuclear trade with India in place since the late 1970s due to New Delhi’s nuclear weapons program and tests in 1974 and 1998. Resistance to a Binding MoratoriumWhat the dispute means from a U.S. legal perspective is not clear. Current U.S. law and proposed statutory changes by the Bush administration clearly would require canceling U.S. nuclear trade if India tested again, regardless of what is in the agreement. Officials in New Delhi have said they have no problem with those legal requirements, noting that U.S. law does not obligate India to refrain from testing. They have said, though, that they would oppose any agreements obligating India to refrain from testing. India also has refused to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. “The United States had shared with India some weeks ago a preliminary draft agreement on India-U.S. civil nuclear cooperation under Article 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters in New Delhi, according to an April 18 Times of India story. “Among the elements suggested by the U.S. side is a reference to cooperation being discontinued were India to detonate a nuclear device. In preliminary discussions on these elements, India has already conveyed to the United States that such a provision has no place in the proposed bilateral agreement,” the spokesman reportedly said. Mulford’s statements yesterday appeared to support that position. He said that U.S. willingness to accept an Indian declaration that it would not test — rather than requiring it in a binding agreement language — had not changed. “India made its own unilateral declaration confirming its policy that it wasn’t going to do any more testing. That is there. That is what was agreed. There is no change in the goal posts,” he said. He suggested the dispute over the not-publicly-released deal text could be managed with a change of language. “There will have to be some sort of wording arrangements there, which have not been agreed,” he said. Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act requires that the administration submit to Congress for approval the text of nuclear cooperation agreements before any cooperation can take place. U.S. critics have charged that India would face little disincentive against resuming testing once it had obtained nuclear technology and other benefits from the deal, such as relaxation of international export control restrictions. They have noted that a provision of the deal would obligate the United States to help India build a strategic store of nuclear fuel and establish an international group of nuclear suppliers that would assure a continuous supply of nuclear reactor fuel in the event that U.S. cooperation ended. “This deal provides incentives for India to resume nuclear testing,” said Henry L. Stimson Center President Emeritus Michael Krepon.
High-level Iranian officials are in Vienna for talks at the International Atomic Energy Agency ahead of an anticipated IAEA report on the country’s nuclear program, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported today (see GSN, April 24). Atomic Energy Organization chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh and his deputy, Mohammad Saeedi, left Tehran yesterday for last-minute discussions before the April 28 U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment work. Former President Ali Rafsanjani, meanwhile, said that Iranian technicians had not yet achieved industrial level enrichment, DPA reported. “Our enrichment process has not yet reached an industrial level, and we are in no hurry to reach that level,” he said. “The West must, however, acknowledge our scientific achievements in enrichment, and we in return must continue confidence-building measures,” he said (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 25). European and U.S. diplomats said that Iran has told the agency it would not answer questions about a parallel, clandestine uranium enrichment program disclosed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this month, the New York Times reported. The diplomats also said Iran had also refused to answer questions about other elements of its disclosed nuclear program that could reveal military applications. The decision was conveyed last week to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, who is preparing a report on Iran due to the Security Council by Friday. Diplomats said the report would declare “a series of understatements” and that Iran had made no move to resolve questions the council gave it 30 days to answer in last month’s resolution. Ahmadinejad surprised agency inspectors and U.S. officials by declaring 10 days ago that the country was “presently conducting research” on advanced P-2 centrifuges, according to the Times. The officials seized on those statements to ask whether Iran is developing a separate set of nuclear facilities it has not previously revealed. Iranian officials told ElBaradei two weeks ago in Tehran that they would attempt to answer questions about the P-2 program and Iran’s former dealings with disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Inspectors also pressed issues such as suspected development of warheads and other delivery systems, the Times reported (Sanger/Fathi, New York Times, April 25). ElBaradei’s report would not be positive for Iran, the U.S. envoy to the agency told Reuters in an interview today. “This report that is due on Friday is meant to cover Iran’s compliance with the demands of the [agency’s] Board of Governors and the Security Council,” said Ambassador Gregory Schulte. “Given the announcement they made two weeks ago (about enriching uranium) and given the apparent failure to cooperate further with the IAEA, we can only expect a negative report,” he said (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, April 25). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday indicated that Iran was considering withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and ending its membership in the agency, the Associated Press reported. “What has more than 30 years of membership in the agency given us?” Ahmadinejad said. “Working in the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the agency is our concrete policy,” he said. “(But) if we see that they are violating our rights, or they don’t want to accept (our rights), well, we will reconsider.” “Those who speak about sanctions would be damaged more” than Iran, he added. “But no particular event will happen, don’t worry” (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, April 24). Schulte told Reuters that Ahmadinejad’s threat to withdraw from the treaty proved Tehran’s intention to develop nuclear weapons. “I think the clear message from this veiled threat is that their program is not a peaceful program. If this program was a peaceful one, why would they be threatening to pull out of the nonproliferation treaty?” he said. There are no preparations being made for an attack on Iran, Schulte said. “Our goal is a peaceful settlement and that’s why we’re working so hard with the European Union, with the Security Council, to achieve this,” Schulte said
(Charbonneau, Reuters). Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top clerical leader, said today that Tehran is prepared to transfer its nuclear technology to other countries, AP reported. “Iran’s nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country. … The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists,” he said (Associated Press II/ABCNews.com, April 25). Iran said today it would end relations with the agency if sanctions are imposed and that a military strike would cause it to send its nuclear activities underground, Agence France-Presse reported today. “If you decide to use sanctions against us, our relations with the agency will be suspended,” said top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. “Military action against Iran will not lead to the closure of the program,” Larijani said. “If you take harsh measures, we will hide this program. Then you cannot solve the nuclear issue.” Larijani said Iran was expanding its enrichment work, AFP reported today. “The first phase was the (uranium) mines and the plant to make yellowcake. The second phase was uranium conversion at Isfahan, and the third phase was research and development at Natanz,” Larijani said. “This work has been completed. A cascade has been put into use, and other cascades will be put into use” (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, April 25). U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the Security Council would consider a draft of a legally binding resolution requiring Iran to freeze all uranium enrichment work. “Our expectation would be that assuming no change of direction by Iran — and there’s no reason to think there will be a change of direction — we’ll look at a ‘Chapter 7’ resolution to make mandatory all the existing IAEA resolutions,” he said (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, April 25). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday warned that the Security Council’s credibility would be undermined if it foregoes clear action against Iran, AP reported. “When the international community reconvenes after the 30 days, there has to be some message, clear message, that this kind of behavior is not acceptable, or you will start to call into question the credibility of what the Security Council says when it says it,” Rice said. “We’ll continue to discuss this with the Russians and with others, but I expect that we’re going to have to have some kind of action by the Security Council that demonstrates that this is a serious matter,” she said. Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Konstantin Dolgov expressed hope that “there will be some further moves and steps taken which could, let’s say, a little bit defuse the situation” before Friday. Dolgov and Chinese U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said their countries continue to oppose sanctions or moves under Chapter 7, AP reported (Anne Gearan, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 24). Rice said yesterday that she was concerned about a U.S. decision to grant a residence permit to a senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official, a situation she learned of from the media, AFP reported. “We are going to try to make certain that we understand the fact, that we understand the legal basis and we’ll take the appropriate action,” she said of Mohammad Nahavandian, economic advisor to Larijani (Agence France-Presse III/IranMania.com, April 24). Elsewhere, a Kremlin source said Moscow “is categorically against the spread of weapons of mass destruction, categorically against Iran having the technical knowledge allowing it to become a nuclear power,” AFP reported yesterday. “It is another issue how to tactically achieve this goal. On this question Russia has differences with the United States,” the source was quoted as saying. “A military scenario is absolutely unacceptable to us,” the source added (Agence France-Presse IV/IranMania.com, April 24). China said the crisis could still be resolved diplomatically, AFP reported today. “We believe, in the current stage, there is still room to resolve this issue through negotiations,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. “We call on all parties to show flexibility and allow a proper resolution of this issue through dialogue and negotiations” (Agence France-Presse V/Yahoo!News, April 25).
Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories have exchanged for peer review their proposed designs for a new U.S. nuclear warhead, Inside Bay Area reported today (see GSN, March 31). The review is part of the selection process for the new warhead, production of which is expected to begin in 2012. They could replace all existing warheads by 2035, Inside Bay Area reported. Critics have said the existing arsenal is sound, while designing new warheads without testing is risky and could undermine U.S. nonproliferation efforts. “There is a motive behind this that has nothing to do with the health of the stockpile. I suggest that the motive is budget,” said Bob Peurifoy, a former weapons executive at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. He said technicians can already precisely manufacture replacement parts for existing missiles. “But that’s no fun. The fun for some of these folks is to go out and try to design new things,” he said. “I believe it’s more important to put attention to the national security needs of the country than to allow them to have their fun. It comes down to a question: Do the (weapons design) labs work for the country, or does the country work for the labs?” (Ian Hoffman, Inside Bay Area, April 25).
Russia is preparing to replace old warheads on its land and sea-based ballistic missiles after the successful test-launch of a new prototype last weekend, RIA Novosti reported yesterday (see GSN, April 17). “This launch allows us to not simply hope, but be certain that all future missiles that will be put in service starting from the end of this year will be equipped with this warhead,” said Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. Ivanov said Russian ICBMs would be equipped with either a single warhead or multiple-warhead re-entry vehicle A top missile designer has said that both sea- and land-based missiles would be re-equipped by 2015, RIA Novosti reported (RIA Novosti, April 24).
The International Atomic Energy Agency is preparing to clean Iraq’s former nuclear facility at Tuwaitha of radioactive contamination, which now could be endangering nearby residents, the London Guardian reported today (see GSN, Sept. 26, 2005). The agency is seeking international support for the effort. “This is a huge task, one that could take many years,” said Dennis Reisenweaver, the agency’s safety expert in charge of the project. While Tuwaitha conducted much of Iraq’s illicit nuclear program, it was mostly disassembled in the 1990s under the watch of international inspectors. U.S.-led forces during the 2003 invasion bombed the site, which was then looted by Iraqis, the Guardian reported. The U.N. nuclear watchdog said materials at the site posed no proliferation danger. Roughly 1,000 people live within the perimeters of the complex, according to the agency. “Levels of radiation are known to be higher than normal and prolonged exposure could prove risky over time,” the agency said. Baghdad has asked the agency to examine radioactive contamination and the states of missing material and equipment at Tuwaitha and other sites. “Some of the challenges facing the cleanup effort include determining now unknown locations where contaminated equipment and materials might be buried, and recovering lost records about the contents of radioactive materials stored in waste containers,” the agency said (Ian Traynor, The Guardian, April 25).
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