Negotiators from the six-party talks began a two-day meeting today on providing energy aid to North Korea as a reward for the nation’s denuclearization, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 26).
The session at the border village of Panmunjom began as a ship carrying 21,000 tons of U.S. heavy fuel oil headed toward North Korea. Its arrival was expected later today, to be followed by an additional 29,000 tons. China and South Korea have already each supplied 50,000 tons of oil to the Stalinist state. “We are gathered here to conduct the quite difficult business of providing energy and economic assistance,” said South Korean negotiator Lim Sung-nam. North Korea has already stated what energy technology and aid it expects in exchange for shuttering its nuclear program, Lim said. The negotiations could be complicated “primarily because we’ll be discussing extremely technical issues,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29). Pyongyang said it has been meeting its denuclearization pledges and hopes that the other nations — China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — would offer reciprocal actions, the Associated Press reported. North Korea this summer halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and has pledged by the end of the year to declare and disable its atomic program. “The North’s basic position was that it was to begin disarmament procedures from Nov. 1 and that it has been sincerely responding to second-stage denuclearization measures such as the disablement and declaration” of its nuclear facilities,” Lim said. “The North’s side generally expressed hopes the five other parties should also provide it with promised economic and energy aid at an appropriate time,” he said (Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Oct. 29). A report issued last week urged negotiators not to settle for shallow measures to disable the nation’s three primary nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, Reuters reported. The plants in question are a nuclear reactor, a fuel-rod production facility and a spent fuel reprocessing site. Negotiators apparently have had a hard time persuading Pyongyang “to carry out disablement steps that significantly damage their nuclear facilities,” according to the report by David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security. “However, future negotiations should continue to press for greater disablement of facilities, leading to their dismantlement,” the report states. “Nuclear weapons production facilities, nuclear weapons themselves, and any operating uranium enrichment plants and associated facilities would be expected to be disabled,” it adds. Disablement must “go beyond simply shutting down, sealing and monitoring a facility,” Albright and Brannan wrote. It must ensure that resuming operations at the plants would require an extensive amount of effort and time (Paul Eckert, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Oct. 29).
International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards head Olli Heinonen began three days of talks in Tehran today over Iran’s progress in installing uranium-enriching centrifuges and developing a new line of high-speed centrifuges, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 26). “So far we have done many things but there remains a lot of other work that hopefully will be done," Iranian state media quoted Heinonen as saying upon arrival in Tehran. Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s atomic energy organization, said he would work with the agency to clarify the nation’s nuclear ambitions before the U.N. nuclear watchdog reports to the United Nations on progress in negotiations next month. "It is possible that the agency raises new questions and points, before ElBaradei's report, under the framework of the same (previous) questions," he said. "In this case, we will provide the necessary answers." Saeedi said the sides would soon reach a final conclusion in their talks through "explicit and open discussions" on the P-1 centrifuges being installed and the P-2 centrifuges under development (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29). IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei said yesterday that his agency has not obtained any evidence suggesting that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, AFP reported. “We haven't received any information there is a parallel, ongoing, active nuclear weapon program," he said. "Even if Iran were to be working on nuclear weapons … they are at least (a) few years away from having such weapon," ElBaradei said, referring to U.S. intelligence estimates. "My fear (is) that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. The Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire" (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Oct. 28). French Defense Minister Herve Morin responded today to ElBaradei’s statement by saying that evidence suggests that Iran has been developing nuclear weapons, AFP reported. “Our information, matching those of other countries, gives us the opposite feeling,” he said (Agence France-Presse III/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29). An exiled Iranian opposition group said Friday that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in two years and urged Europe to end its “policy of appeasement,” AFP reported. “Two years is enough for the Iranian regime to complete its nuclear weapons program," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, foreign affairs chief for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. He did not provide evidence to support the claim, which places Iran years closer to a nuclear weapon than other estimates (Agence France-Presse IV/EUBusiness, Oct. 26). Meanwhile, the Bush administration on Friday dismissed comparisons between current statements on Iran and its rhetoric before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, AFP reported. "I don't think there are any parallels to draw at all,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. When Fratto was questioned on whether the United States was moving toward military intervention in Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program, he said, "I think we're very, very hopeful that it won't." “We are absolutely committed to a diplomatic process. We would never take options off the table, but the diplomatic process is what we want to move forward with," he said (Olivier Knox, Agence France-Presse V/Yahoo!News, Oct. 26). Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday defended the Bush administration’s refusal to rule out military action in dealing with Iran, the New York Times reported. “I think the president is dead right,” he said in reference to a statement by U.S. President George W. Bush that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger “World War III.” “I think the president is justified in trying to wake up the world, wake up Russia, wake up the European nations,” Graham said. “We need to be more aggressive,” he said. “We don’t need to talk softly, we need to act boldly, because time is not on our side.” Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) took the opposite view, arguing that although a “tighter rope” around Iran is necessary, it is important not to “just give Iran a propaganda weapon — don’t just give them a can of gasoline to pour onto the fire.” “That’s what this hot rhetoric does when it’s just constantly repeated about World War III, or ‘We’re going to use a military option,’” said Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We ought to dial down the rhetoric.” Levin said that Western powers should offer “carrots” to Iran rather than just “sticks,” referring to political and economic incentives offered in nuclear negotiations with North Korea (Brian Knowlton, New York Times, Oct. 29). Concerned with the possibility of a destabilizing war in nearby Iran, European nations have debated how to respond to Tehran’s nuclear standoff with the West as France and the United Kingdom have pushed for independent EU sanctions, the Associated Press reported Saturday. While France was long thought to consider Iran too profitable a business partner to consider sanctions against the country, it has now joined the United Kingdom in its desire to financially isolate the nation. Other European nations remain reserved about the possibility of new sanctions against Iran, a divide reminiscent of divisions before the invasion of Iraq. “It's not unthinkable that (Europe) could reach symbolic sanctions, but it will be complicated to get much further. There's just too much division," said Philippe Moreau-Defarges of the French Institute for International Relations. "France is pretty isolated, aside from Britain" (Jamey Keaten, Associated Press/Google News, Oct. 27). Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni today called for a new sense of urgency in dealing with Iran during a three-day visit to China, AFP reported. "We must rise above national interests or economical considerations and think about the grave implications that a nuclear Iran will have on the stability of the planet," Livni said today at Beijing's People's University. “It is time to expand them and adopt a new Security Council resolution … on new deeper and more effective sanctions," the Israeli Foreign Ministry quoted her as saying in a meeting at a Chinese research center (Ron Bousso, Agence France-Presse VI/Yahoo!News, Oct. 29). Over the last nine months, the United Kingdom has approved about 60 Iranian postgraduate students to study “proliferation-sensitive” subjects such as nuclear physics, microbiology and certain electrical and chemical engineering fields, the London Times reported yesterday. According to David Willetts, an official monitoring university education, 30 Iranians were conducting postgraduate studies in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering from 2005 to 2006. “Given that we need to have tougher sanctions against Iran, it does seem extraordinary that the government is not yet stopping Iranians coming here to study nuclear physics. There is legitimate concern about what some students have been studying,” Willetts said. The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office said this weekend that it was reviewing security concerns over the Iranian students and planned to establish new security standards within the next several weeks. The tightened regulations are expected to cover the studies of metallurgy, molecular biology, chemistry and nuclear science. Currently, a university must elect to inform the government that a student from a non-EU country has been approved to study a sensitive area before an investigation can take place. In the past, the United Kingdom has served as a place of study for researchers from states conducting controversial weapons activities. Between 1980 and 1984, the Iraqi microbiologist Rihab Taha (see GSN, March 14, 2006) studied at the University of East Anglia. Taha later rose to a key position in Iraq’s biological weapons program and earned the nickname “Dr. Germ” (Jack Grimston, London Times, Oct. 28).
U.S. intelligence services had watched a possible nuclear reactor construction site in Syria for years before Israel bombed it last month, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 26). A satellite image taken in 2003 shows the main building to be in roughly the same condition as photographs taken earlier this year before the Israeli strike. Other buildings, including a possible pumping station, were not yet built, according to the Times. Site construction might have begun in 2001, the Times reported, and the activity at the remote desert site drew U.S. attention. Private experts have suggested that the facility resembles a North Korean nuclear reactor used to produce plutonium. “It was noticed, without knowing what it was,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official. “You revisit every so often, but it was not a high priority. You see things that raise the flag and you know you have to keep looking. It was a case of watching it evolve.” The question of Syria’s nuclear ambitions was debated within the Bush administration at the time, said former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. “There was disagreement about what Syria was interested in and how much we should be monitoring it,” he said. “There was activity in Syria that I felt was evidence that they were trying to develop a nuclear program.” Other officials disagreed, however, and a dispute arose in 2003 over testimony Bolton, then at the State Department, planned to give that included a hard-line assessment of Syrian aims (see GSN, July 16, 2003). Today, State Department leaders seeking a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis might prefer a tougher assessment of Syria’s past nuclear activity to demonstrate that Pyongyang was proliferating nuclear technology before the latest diplomatic successes, according to the Times (see related GSN story, today; Broad/Mazzetti, New York Times, Oct. 27). The evidence of activity from at least four years ago could suggest that the Syrian project began under the direction of former President Hafez Assad, who died in 2000. The program might then have been withheld for some time from Assad’s son and successor Bashar al-Assad, Newsweek reported (Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, Oct. 27). Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday criticized the United States and Israel for withholding information about potential nuclear activity in Syria. “We have a system: If countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate,” he said in a CNN interview. “But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion, because we are the eyes and ears of the international community.” “I would hope if anybody has information, before they take the law into their own hands, to come and pass the information on,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 28).
U.S.-supplied radiation detectors are “fully operational” at three Slovakian border points with Ukraine, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced today (see GSN, Oct. 24). The United States under the Second Line of Defense program agreed last year to supply radiation sensors, associated communications technology and training to five Slovak border crossings. Bratislava is expected to pay for the equipment and its installation. Installation at the final two border spots is expected to be finished next spring. “Slovakia and the United States are working closely together to stop nuclear smuggling. This partnership plays a critical role in the global fight against the illicit trafficking of nuclear material and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” said NNSA deputy chief William Tobey in a press release. The agency’s Second Line of Defense program provides foreign nations with support in installing radiation detection equipment at border crossings, airports, seaports and other points of entry. More than 160 locations across the globe have received equipment to date (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, Oct. 29).
Fewer than half of U.S. Energy Department sites that store nuclear weapon materials are likely to meet a 2008 deadline to improve their security standards, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis delivered to a Senate committee in July (see GSN, Sept. 26). The study finds that just five of the 11 sites are on track to complete the improvements by the time department officials originally planned. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Energy Department has frequently reviewed the level of threat its facilities must protect against. Officials are now working to implement measures to defend against a security threat — known as the Design Basis Threat — established in 2005. The department “has struggled to determine ‘how much is enough’ security and, as a result, its DBT policy has undergone substantial changes in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007,” says a presentation slide from a July 27 briefing that GAO officials delivered to the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. The briefing papers were acquired by the Project on Government Oversight, a group that has raised frequent alarms over security conditions at U.S. nuclear facilities (Greg Webb, Global Security Newswire, Oct. 29). POGO analysts have urged the department to consolidate its nuclear weapon materials into fewer storage facilities as both a cost-saving and security-improvement measure. “They wouldn’t be having these problems now” if the sites had been consolidated, POGO head Danielle Brian told the New York Times. While the department agrees that consolidation would be beneficial, implementing that goal has been difficult, said Robert Alvarez, another POGO official. “There’s a lot of pushback about moving fissile materials from a site, because then you lose a portion of your budget and prestige,” said Alvarez, who served as an adviser to the energy secretary during the Clinton administration (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Oct. 28).
Russia announced Thursday that it plans to flight-test two Tochka ballistic missiles between Nov. 13 and 17 from a site in southern Russia, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Oct. 18). Also called the SS-21 Scarab, the short-range, single-warhead missile can be fired from a mobile launcher to hit targets within 45 miles. Russia has maintained the weapon in its arsenal since 1976, but it ultimately is to be replaced by the multiple-warhead Iskander-M missile. “The missile units will conduct missile firing practices (at the Kapustin Yar testing site in the Astrakhan Region) and will test launch two Tochka tactical missiles,” said Col. Igor Konashenkov. The Russian Ground Forces successfully tested 12 Tochka missiles in 2007, Konashenkov said, noting that the November launches would be carried out by a Siberian missile brigade. Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces plan to launch five ICBMs by the end of this year, said commander Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov. Russia has already conducted seven ICBM tests in 2007, RIA Novosti reported. “By the end of this year, we will test launch another five missiles, including an RS-18 (SS-19 Stiletto), an RS-12M (SS-25 Sickle), a missile interceptor and a heavy RS-20 (SS-18 Satan),” Solovtsov said. He noted that that five regiments armed with silo-based Topol-M systems have been brought online in the Saratov Region (RIA Novosti/Spacewar.com, Oct. 29).
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