Interpol Releases Bioterrorism Preparedness Guide

Interpol this week issued a bioterrorism preparedness guide during a workshop in Chile focused on the importance of regional, national and international cooperation in preventing biological attacks, according to the U.S. State Department (see GSN, March 24).

The three-day Americas Regional Workshop on Preventing Bioterrorism in Santiago included participants from 26 nations. It offered information on biohazards, laboratory security, bioterrorism identification and other areas.

“Many people still question if the threat of bioterrorism is real, and there can be no doubt that it is,” Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a July 13 statement. “Law enforcement agencies and other affected organizations cannot simply sit back and wait for an attack to take place, as doing nothing is not an option.”

He said there is “much evidence that terrorists have a strong interest in the use of biological weapons, and are planning to use them. We must always remind ourselves of this evidence because this helps us maintain our resolve to prevent such potential harm from actually occurring.”

Interpol member country experts, including specialists from the United States, helped compile the Bioterrorism Incident Preparedness and Response Guide. It is intended to help law enforcement agencies ready themselves for acts of terrorism involving pathogens such as anthrax and plague.

The importance of awareness and training against acts of bioterrorism “cannot be underestimated, Interpol said (U.S. State Department, release, July 13).

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G-8 Global Partnership Needs Spark, Report Says

By Zerline Jennings
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Significant work is needed to fulfill the promise of the Group of Eight Global Partnership program to secure unconventional weapons and materials, according to a report released yesterday in advance of this weekend’s G-8 summit in St. Petersburg (see GSN, June 28, 2002).

Leaders of the world industrial powers must “spark future action to reinvigorate the Global Partnership,” the $20 billion plan to secure WMD materials, largely in Russia, over the next 10 years, according to the report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The report appraises the program’s work since its 2002 inception at the G-8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada. It takes stock of progress made over the last four years and the challenges that remain.

“Since 2002, the risk of weapons or materials of mass destruction falling into terrorist hands has only grown more acute,” states the report, commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative. “Bombings since 9/11 in Tunisia, Bali and Kenya in 2002, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey in 2003, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 demonstrated that countries other than the United States were targets for al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and evidence has mounted that terrorists intend to attain the world’s most destructive weapons.”

Members in the Global Partnership program — which now consists of 21 nations and the European Union — have designated more than $17 billion to various projects. However, only $3.5 billion has been spent to date. Even the full $20 billion is insufficient, the center said, noting that an earlier report had called for an increase in funding.

“Our international consortium encouraged the G-8 to make their promise of $20 billion a ‘floor not a ceiling,’ anticipating that $20 billion would not be enough to complete the work that needed to be done. Yet in the fourth year of the Global Partnership, even the $20 billion goal has not been reached. … The current tally — just over $17 billion — is insufficient,” the report said. 

The partnership has made successful efforts to expand participation — thus donors — beyond the G-8 nations and European Union, the report states. Thirteen other nations have signed on:  Finland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand and South Korea.

There have been significant developments among the four priorities designated in 2002 for the Global Partnership program: the destruction of chemical weapons, the dismantlement of decommissioned nuclear submarines, the disposition of fissile materials and the employment of former weapons scientists. 

The United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Canada and Norway have made significant progress in submarine dismantlement and chemical weapons destruction. More than $687 million has been provided to Russia for work in those two sectors, the report states.

Other areas — securing nuclear materials, preventing smuggling of WMD materials and biological weapons site conversion — have received less attention, the report says. “Yet progress in those three areas would have the biggest impact in terms of reaching the fundamental Kananaskis goal of preventing terrorist access to WMD materials and know-how.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]

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Nuclear Terror Threat Persists, Harvard Report Says

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — While there have been incremental steps forward, significant efforts are still needed to lock down the world’s caches of nuclear material, just a small amount of which could create profound destruction in the hands of terrorists, according to a Harvard University report released this week (see GSN, March 30).

The annual report produced by Harvard’s Project on Managing the Atom calls for a global coalition to head off nuclear terrorism and focuses on Russia as the epicenter of undersecured nuclear material. Researchers and experts urged world leaders to address the issue at this weekend’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg.

“The threats in Russia are truly frightening,” said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard researcher and co-author of the study, Securing the Bomb 2006.  Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and material to make nuclear weapons in hundreds of bunkers and buildings across the country.

Past instances of extreme security dysfunctions at Russian sites have ranged from gaping holes in fences to a lack of radiation detectors. Workers could have just walked out with a lump of uranium without causing an alarm to sound, according to the report.

While combating corruption is still a challenge and much work in Russia remains to be done, the most dangerous problems of the 1990s have been addressed, Bunn said yesterday as he presented the report here at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which commissioned the report.

The pace of progress has accelerated notably since U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin last year signed an agreement to aggressively address a list of nuclear security concerns by 2008, the report notes. More security upgrades were completed at more buildings housing nuclear material in 2005 than ever before (see GSN, Feb. 25, 2005).

Still, according to the report, U.S.-funded efforts to comprehensively upgrade security at former Soviet sites holding weapon-usable nuclear material have covered only 54 percent of the buildings. The authors also noted only “modest progress” has been made in the consolidation of weapons and weapon-usable material into smaller numbers of secure locations.

It is imperative that a “security culture” take hold in Russia for upgrades to be effective, the report states (see GSN, Feb. 22, 2002). Guards must no longer “patrol without ammunition in their guns” and staff must “no longer turn off intrusion detectors or prop open security doors.”

Bunn noted that the problem of undersecured nuclear material is not confined to Russia. With nuclear material in 40 countries and highly enriched uranium used in 135 civilian research reactors around the world — many of which are poorly secured — the problem is global, he said. 

“Elsewhere around the world there’s much less progress to report, unfortunately,” Bunn said. “In Pakistan, we have a nuclear stockpile that’s thought to be heavily guarded but faces immense threats from armed remnants of al-Qaeda operating in the country to nuclear insiders who are many of them extreme Islamists with a demonstrated record of being willing to sell practically anything to practically anyone.”

Bunn called for a global minimum standard of nuclear security and an international coalition addressing nuclear terrorism. “We think that the work in Russia should increasingly be part of a global coalition,” he said. “We’re going to need to pursue genuine nuclear security partnerships rather than trying to impose made-in-America approaches.”

Civilian research reactors fueled with highly enriched uranium often have little more security than a night watchman and a fence, and for most countries other than Russia, U.S.-backed security enhancements have not begun or have not yet been planned, according to the report.

“Like a gazelle running from a cheetah we are moving in the right direction but we are still not keeping up with the threat,” said former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. “That takes leadership, and I hope we will see it in the next few days at the G-8.”

Bunn called for “sustained, day-in-day-out leadership from the very top” and said the creation of a senior White House post devoted to preventing nuclear terrorism is “beyond due.”

The Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction was launched at the 2002 G-8 summit in Canada, but the report criticizes that program for directing just a “dribble of non-U.S. funds” to securing nuclear stockpiles. Rather, the initiative has focused other money on dismantling nuclear-powered attack submarines and destroying chemical weapons.

Russia should take a leadership role in a global effort and increase its donations to nuclear security efforts in other nations, said Michele Flournoy, an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

“The G-8 is a very important coordination body for doing that,” she said at the presentation of the report. “I think Russia has a real opportunity.”

Flournoy characterized the issue as one of political will and leadership.

Nunn accused international leaders of making empty promises. “What they’re good at is making pledges. What they’re not good at is follow up. They’re not good about keeping track of themselves,” he said.

“Whatever the risk is now, whatever the gap is now, we have to drive it down, down, down,” he said.

The pending U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement is also highlighted in the report as lacking a nuclear security program despite persistent years of encouragement from lower-level officials to coax India to cooperate on improvements.

Despite a number of dire pronouncements, Bunn offered a glimmer of hope.

“The gap between the threat and the response is a least beginning to narrow,” he said. “We do see some significant progress.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]

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U.S. Converts 50 Tons of Weapon-Grade Uranium

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Energy Department officials announced yesterday that it has converted 50 metric tons of uranium from U.S. weapons stocks to low-enriched reactor fuel (see GSN, June 29).

The uranium, enough material for roughly 800 nuclear warheads, was part of 174 tons the United States committed to downblending in a 1998 agreement with Russia. For its part, Russia pledged to convert 500 tons of highly enriched uranium to a form posing no proliferation risk.

The reactor fuel created from the U.S. material is enough to run a single reactor “for about a third of a century” or “enough to provide 22 percent of household electric needs to the whole country for about a year,” according to Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Most of the remaining U.S. highly enriched uranium has been allocated to various projects for disposal, but officials advanced no timeframes for those initiatives.  The blending down of the 50 tons of at least 90-percent enriched, bomb-grade uranium to a 3 to 5 percent enrichment level took about seven years

Shipments of the uranium began arriving at a Virginia facility operated by the firm BWX Technologies in 1999, and the last of the highly enriched material was converted to reactor fuel in June.

As of 2005, more than half of the 500 tons of Russian highly enriched uranium had been blended down, Brooks said.

Twenty percent of electricity produced in the United States flows from nuclear reactors, and of that half is fueled by downblended highly enriched material, he said. “One in 10 light bulbs in the United States is being powered by Cold War-era atom bombs.”

The next portion of the 174 tons earmarked for conversion from weapon-grade material is 17 tons of uranium that would create a fuel bank of “last resort” for other nations. Countries would enjoy the “benefits of nuclear energy without being hostage to any particular source,” Brooks said.

The details of that program have not yet been hashed out and there is little sense of urgency, he said. “Remember, we’re making decisions about material, some of which is still in weapons being disassembled.”

At least some of the 50 tons recently converted came from the Energy Department’s Pantex facility in Amarillo, Tex., the nation’s only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility (see GSN, May 4).

An additional 20 to 50 tons of material is to be downblended as part of a decision to withdraw 200 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from the U.S. weapons program, Brooks said (see GSN, Nov.8, 2005). Again, he attached no schedule to the initiative.

The bulk of that material pulled from the weapons program would be set aside for use in naval vessels propelled by nuclear reactors, he said. By reallocating that store of highly enriched material, the United States would have no need to enrich uranium above 5 percent for decades, Brooks said.

Addressing a separate fissile material disposal agreement, Brooks said he expects construction to begin this fall on a U.S. facility to convert plutonium to a mixed-oxide fuel for nuclear reactors (see related GSN story, today).

In 2000, Moscow and Washington pledged to each convert 34 metric tons of plutonium to fuel, but funding for the bilateral program has come under fire on Capitol Hill (see GSN, June 26).

A House appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007 pulls funding for the program entirely. Expressing frustration with a lack of Russian cooperation, the Senate version of the legislation reduces funding for the program by more than $200 million. The Senate recommends stripping funding for a Russian conversion facility and redirecting it to the U.S site in South Carolina.

Brooks expressed hope that the mixed-oxide funding would emerge from conference relatively unscathed.

“I continue to hope that the president’s proposal will prevail,” he said. “The program is important.”

The National Nuclear Security Administration also yesterday announced the completion of a two-year effort to move highly enriched uranium from a Russian research reactor to a more secure site in that country.

Working with the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Brooks’ agency moved the material from the Krylov Shipbuilding Research Institute in St. Petersburg to a facility in Dmitrovgrad.

The highly enriched uranium — the exact amount of which has not been released — is expected to be added to more than 17,000 pounds of material already secured under the Material Consolidation and Conversion Program.

The program has securely stored and converted Russian highly enriched uranium from former Soviet satellites such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, the Czech Republic and Latvia.

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U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal Could Cause “Realignment” in South Asia, Pakistani Official Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The proposed U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation deal could foster increased Pakistani security concerns that drive the country away from the United States and toward another major power such as Russia or China, a Pakistani arms control official said Wednesday (see GSN, July 13).

“If this existential threat from its large eastern neighbor is compounded because of the India-U.S. strategic partnership and becomes difficult to manage, it [Pakistan] could be compelled to exercise all available options including a possible strategic realignment with other big powers in the region,” said Wing Commander Adil Sultan, an analyst on missile and nuclear-related issues at the Pakistani joint staff headquarters.

Pakistan could also “take measures to improve the capability of its minimum nuclear deterrent,” he said.

Sultan made his comments as part of a presentation at the Henry L. Stimson Center here, where he is a visiting fellow and was said to be speaking in a personal capacity and not as a representative of his government.

Sultan would not say what new regional alignment Pakistan might seek. “It all depends on your national interest. Who can safeguard your national interest,” he said, adding, “Russia is one obvious choice because it’s one of the big powers.”

He said realignment also “would depend upon the future of U.S.-Pakistan relations, U.S.-India relations.”

Sultan said the proposed deal to allow nuclear exports to India could enable that country to make quantitative and qualitative advances in its nuclear weapons capabilities. It could give India access to uranium for civilian purposes, enabling it to build greater numbers of weapons with domestic uranium, he said. India also could acquire knowledge through civil nuclear cooperation that could migrate into its weapons program and help improve warhead designs, he said. 

In addition, proposed efforts to improve cooperation on space technology could help India improve its warhead delivery systems, he said.

“If India decides to make qualitative and quantitative improvements [to] its nuclear arsenal … it would create instability in the region,” he said. 

“This could have a significant effect on Pakistan’s strategic thinking,” he said.

Pakistan’s judgment of the implications of the deal, he said, also could depend on whether it is followed by an “imbalance” of U.S. conventional arms sales and the status of the Indian-Pakistani peace process.

“Pakistan is not in a panic mode. It is waiting for what India opts to do,” he said. It would “take some time” for India to make qualitative or quantitative improvements to its strategic arsenal, he said.

Attending the presentation, a former senior U.S. arms control official, questioned Pakistan’s options for aligning with another major power.

“The present U.S.-Pakistan relationship is pretty strong, and in terms of funding it’s in excess of $2 billion a year in both economic support funding and foreign military sales.   I don’t see and perhaps you could explain how this would be replaced with another larger regional country,” said Robert Grey, former U.S. representative to the Conference on Disarmament.

Sultan said the United States has subjected Pakistan to a “cycle of sanctions” and said Pakistan’s military concerns and energy concerns could influence its alignment.

“Those are the things that can shape up future alignments in the region,” he said.

Grey also said that India’s conventional arms superiority over Pakistan would probably increase regardless of whether the United States sells India equipment.

In another challenge to one of Sultan’s assertions, Natural Resources Defense Council analyst Christopher Paine said in an interview today that it is hard to see a direct connection between the transfer of light-water reactors and low-enriched fuel and specific improvements to India’s nuclear weapons design.

He and others, though, have argued the potential transfer of more advanced nuclear technology and knowledge to India for civil energy could ultimately assist its nuclear weapons program. “How do you prevent, once the information is transferred and it’s in the minds of people and their calculators and computers, how do you keep it from washing over to the weapons side? You don’t,” he said.

Sultan endorsed negotiating a regional nuclear nonproliferation regime that would bring nuclear India and Pakistan into compliance with most the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty requirements and allow both countries to receive civil nuclear trade.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said Tuesday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington that Pakistan would agree to a bilateral weapon-grade fissile material production moratorium with India and that the United States would ultimately offer a civil nuclear agreement similar to what it has offered India. The Bush administration has said it has ruled out such a deal for Islamabad.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that Representative Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) has expressed concern that advanced technology in 18 U.S. F-16 fighter aircraft offered to Pakistan in a proposed deal might leak to China.

The proposed U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation arrangement reportedly has yet to be fully negotiated and requires approval by the U.S. Congress and the multinational Nuclear Suppliers Group. Legislation is moving through Congress that would allow the deal to go through by waiving legal restrictions against India because of its nuclear weapons testing and ongoing program.

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Officials Release Details of Nuclear Offer to Iran

Leading Western nations yesterday disclosed the details of a nuclear incentives package offered to Iran last month, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 13).

If Iran agrees to suspend uranium enrichment during negotiations, the world powers would promote Tehran’s membership in the World Trade Organization and grant it access to U.S. and European civilian aircraft, telecommunications and nuclear energy technologies. Tehran would receive help with construction of light-water nuclear energy reactors and a guarantee to receive nuclear fuel by making the country part of an international enrichment consortium in Russia for five years, according to AP.

The proposal asked Iran, in turn, to address all outstanding concerns about its nuclear program with the International Atomic Energy Agency, “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities ... and commit to continue this during these negotiations.” They also requested that Tehran allow agency officials to conduct snap inspections of its nuclear facilities and other undeclared sites (Edith Lederer, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 14).

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced yesterday that a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on the issue would make agency demands binding on Iran, RIA Novosti reported.

“I think the time will be enough for Iran to weigh up its options and realize that the incentives of the [world powers] do meet Iran’s economic interests, its peaceful nuclear energy interests, and seek to involve Iran fully in a dialogue on regional and international issues, including security,” Lavrov said (RIA Novosti, July 13).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that Iran could face sanctions if it did not respond to the offer, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We have waited patiently and we have had no workable response from Iran. We have to see what the next steps will be if Iran continues to remain silent,” Merkel said. “This may include sanctions.”

“If Iran thinks that the international community will be divided, then it will be disappointed,” she added (Agence France-Presse I/IranMania.com, July 13).

Experts said Russia’s decision to present a unified front with the Western powers on the issue should not be counted on to last after this weekend’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg concludes, AFP reported.

“Putin’s Russia wants to present itself as a responsible power,” said Didier Billion of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris.

“The Kremlin was ready to make concessions because it wants results in its bid to join the World Trade Organization,” said Evgeni Volk of the Hermitage Foundation in Moscow

“We cannot rule out Russia changing its position again once the summit is over, but on Wednesday it had no other option,” said Alexei Malachenko of the Carnegie Foundation in Moscow.

Analysts said both Russia and China remain opposed to economic penalties.

“Russia and China are interested in putting up the pressure on Iran, but that does not mean they will agree to start applying sanctions,” said Johannes Reissner of the Political Science Foundation in Berlin.

“There is a real danger that we will end up with a half measure — sanctions that have little effect and allow the Iranians to continue with their program of enrichment,” said Francois Gere of the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (Agence France-Presse II/IranMania.com, July 13).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday accused the United States of being behind the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program, the New York Times reported.

“I urge the Americans not to create any problems,” he said. “We and the Europeans will resolve the issue on our own.”

Larijani urged Europe to continue negotiating with Iran.

Larijani also acknowledged today that Tehran had complained to the International Atomic Energy Agency about Chris Charlier, the agency’s Iran section head. Larijani said the agency had as a result prevented Charlier from traveling to Iran, though Western diplomats this week accused Tehran of barring him from the country.

“We made a complaint about the way he worked, and it was the decision of the agency to bar him from coming,” Larijani said (Nazila Fathi, New York Times, July 14).

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U.S., Russia Reaffirm Plutonium Disposition Agreement

Russia and the United States have reaffirmed their pledge to each dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium, the U.S. Energy Department announced yesterday (see GSN, July 7).

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergei Kiriyenko signed a joint statement indicating that Moscow plans to begin using a BN-600 fast-neutron reactor to dispose of excess weapon-grade plutonium between 2010 and 2012.  The United States, meanwhile, has scheduled construction of a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility to begin this fall.

“This statement is a clear sign of our mutual commitment to keeping dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists,” Bodman said in a press release. 

“We have put in place a procedure for addressing remaining technical issues in the Russian program.  We will continue to work with the Russians to ensure that this important nonproliferation project moves forward in both countries,” said Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (U.S. Energy Department release, July 13).

One nonproliferation expert criticized the deal for allowing Moscow to use breeder reactors, which create more plutonium.

“Plutonium disposition never was about disarmament and now even [the] nonproliferation justification seems to have evaporated,” said Tom Clements of Greenpeace (Greenpeace release, July 13).

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Russia to Add Topol-M Missile Systems

Russia plans to add 69 silo-based and mobile ballistic missile systems to its arsenal within 10 years, RIA Novosti reported yesterday (see GSN, April 17).

“We are planning to buy 69 (Topol-M) systems by 2015,” Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said (RIA Novosti, July 14).

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North Korea Rejects South Korean Call for End to Missile Launches, Demands More Aid

Talks between North Korea and South Korea ended angrily yesterday, with Pyongyang refusing to halt missile tests and resume nuclear negotiations, the International Herald Tribune reported (see GSN, July 13).

North Korean officials visiting Seoul said Pyongyang’s “army-first” policy “promotes the security for the South and benefits the general public of the South.” They asked Seoul to provide 500,000 tons of rice, as well as shoe and textile materials.

South Korean newspapers called the request “brazen-faced” and “arrogant,” and Seoul said food aid was off the table.

“Have we asked for your help in protecting our security?” South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told his North Korean counterpart, Kwon Ho Ung. “Nobody in the South believes your army-first politics is helping us. If you want to help our security, you should stop missile tests and your nuclear weapons program” (Choe Sang-Hun, International Herald Tribune, July 13).

Meanwhile, Japan today agreed to begin compromise talks on a toughly worded U.N. resolution calling for punitive action against North Korea for its missile tests, Agence France-Presse reported.

“It’s commonly understood that two camps have to come to a middle point where they feel satisfied through fiddling (with their proposals), because it’s impossible for both parties to be completely satisfied,” said Foreign Minister Taro Aso.

China and Russia oppose sanctioning Pyongyang and have introduced a rival resolution.

However, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Tokyo would continue to seek a resolution “that includes mandatory sanctions.”

Aso called for the United Nations to take action against North Korea before considering Iran’s nuclear dossier, which is set to go before the council again in the coming days.

“Looking at the level of crisis, that in this region is much higher. I want them (the United Nations) to adopt a resolution with priority,” Aso said (Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, July 14).

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said a compromise between China and Russia and the Western powers over the wording of a North Korea resolution was possible, AFP reported yesterday.

“We have identified some areas where we can find language that would be mutually acceptable, although there’s still a long, long way to go,” Bolton said (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, July 13).

South Korea announced it would send envoys to China, Japan and the United States in the coming days, AP reported today.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung is expected to depart for China tomorrow to discuss the matter with top Chinese nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei. Lead South Korean nuclear negotiator Chun Young-woo, meanwhile, is scheduled to go to Washington and Tokyo next week.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that Pyongyang’s withdrawal from talks with Seoul was “another example of North Korea rejecting the entreaties of their neighbors to engage in constructive behavior.”

“That pathway will only lead to further and further isolation,” he said (Burt Herman, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, July 14).

The Group of Eight major industrial nations is expected to issue a statement this weekend demanding that North Korea refrain from launching any more missiles, AP reported today.

Kyodo News cited Japanese officials as saying that the statement might not name North Korea explicitly, however (Associated Press II/The Hindu, July 14).

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