Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei (center) arranges a handshake today between North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan (left) and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, following North Korea’s agreement to suspend its nuclear activities (Michael Reynolds/Getty Images). North Korea Accepts Nuclear Concessions, Disarmament North Korea today agreed to begin the process of nuclear disarmament in return for energy and economic aid from other nations participating in six-nation talks in Beijing (see GSN, Feb. 12). Pyongyang must close its operating nuclear reactor and allow U.N. nuclear inspectors back into the country within 60 days, according to the tentative agreement.  In total it would receive about $400 million in fuel oil and support, the New York Times reported...Full Story

Putin Says U.S. Policy Leads WMD Proliferation Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the Bush administration Saturday, charging that U.S. foreign policy is encouraging the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Feb. 1)...Full Story

Diplomacy, Sanctions Have Failed to Stop Iranian Nuclear Advances, European Union Study Finds A European Union study has found that diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear activities have failed and will probably continue to have no effect on Tehran’s ability to develop atomic technology, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 12)...Full Story

	Tuesday, February 13, 2007

North Korea Accepts Nuclear Concessions, Disarmament North Korea today agreed to begin the process of nuclear disarmament in return for energy and economic aid from other nations participating in six-nation talks in Beijing (see GSN, Feb. 12). Pyongyang must close its operating nuclear reactor and allow U.N. nuclear inspectors back into the country within 60 days, according to the tentative agreement.  In total it would receive about $400 million in fuel oil and support, the New York Times reported. The deal came in the early morning of the sixth day of negotiations.  It must still be approved in the capitals of China, Japan, Russia, the United States and North and South Korea. Specific steps to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons and weapon-grade fuel would be left to future talks. “We feel it is an excellent draft,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Washington’s lead envoy to the talks.  “I don’t think we are the problem” (Yardley/Sanger, New York Times, Feb. 13). One recently departed Bush administration official disagreed, the Associated Press reported. “I am very disturbed by this deal,” said former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.  “It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world:  “If we hold out long enough, wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded,’ in this case with massive shipments of heavy fuel oil for only doing partially what needs to be done” (Audra Ang, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Feb. 13). The agreement requires Pyongyang within 60 days to close and seal its Yongbyon nuclear facilities under the watch of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  The Stalinist state would in return receive energy, food and additional support equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, AP reported. Washington and Tokyo agreed to begin the process of normalizing relations with Pyongyang.  The United States would also begin removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and look to end trade sanctions. Foreign ministers from the negotiating nations would meet in 60 days to confirm that the agreement’s requirements have been met and to discuss northeast Asian security cooperation.  Talks would also be planned on a permanent end to the Korean War, which has been under a cease fire since 1953. Pyongyang would receive support equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil upon submission of a full list of its nuclear programs and shuttering off all atomic sites.  Details of this effort are to be discussed in later talks, according to AP. Working groups are to be formed covering five areas:  denuclearization, relations between North Korea and the United States, relations between Japan and North Korea, economic cooperation, and a peace and security mechanism for northeast Asia. Six-party talks would resume on March 19 (Associated Press II/New York Times, Feb. 13). Doubts remain about Pyongyang’s willingness to actually give up its nuclear arsenal, which it sees as insurance against forced regime change.  “This is a freeze with a promise to negotiate subsequent disarmament,” Clinton administration nonproliferation official Gary Samore told the Times.  “And a North Korean promise to negotiate later is pretty worthless” (Yardley/Sanger, New York Times). In a potential sign of trouble, North Korea said its agreement only requires a temporary closing of nuclear sites, AP reported (Ang, Associated Press). “This is only one phase of denuclearization,” Hill said of today’s agreement, according to the Times.  “We’re not done.” China, South Korea and the United States would provide the oil and support.  Japan is waiting for resolution to the issue of abduction of its citizens by North Korea before it participates in that effort. The White House has tried to distinguish its recent disarmament efforts in North Korea from the 1994 Agreed Framework approved by the Clinton administration.  That pact pledged the United States to provide up to 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil for heating and electricity production annually once Pyongyang froze work at its nuclear sites, and eventually to supply light-water reactors to North Korea. The Bush administration derided the plan for failing to ensure that North Korean nuclear fuel was shipped out of the nation before it received large amounts of support, the Times reported.  The agreement was dissolved in 2002 after Washington said Pyongyang had acknowledged operating a secret uranium enrichment program. The White House notes that the new plan does not involve providing nuclear reactors to Pyongyang, but does involve participation by China and other nations near North Korea (Yardley/Sanger, New York Times). Back to top       Diplomacy, Sanctions Have Failed to Stop Iranian Nuclear Advances, European Union Study Finds A European Union study has found that diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear activities have failed and will probably continue to have no effect on Tehran’s ability to develop atomic technology, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 12). “At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons program,” says a “reflection paper” crafted by the staff of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.  “Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have so far not succeeded.” International efforts to pressure Iran through U.N. sanctions and other economic measures have also had little effect, according to the study. “The Iranians have pursued their program at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the U.N. or the [International Atomic Energy Agency],” it says. The study would probably provide fuel for proponents of more aggressive policies toward Iran, such as threatening military action, the Times reported (Dombey/Schmid, Financial Times, Feb. 12). EU policy-makers have agreed to enact more rigorous economic restrictions against Iran under a December U.N. Security Council resolution, the New York Times reported today. “This is a very positive initiative because it takes the European Union beyond where they were until recently,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. “It’s not everything we would like to see happen. But the trajectory is good and the momentum is good, so we think this is a positive event” (Steven Weisman, New York Times, Feb. 13). IAEA Reassigns Senior Inspector Meanwhile, the U.N. nuclear agency has yielded to Iranian complaints and plans to reassign the official in charge of IAEA inspections in Iran, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Jan. 26). Iran demanded Chris Charlier’s removal last month in a letter to agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, saying that Charlier leaked information about Iran’s nuclear program. Charlier is to be moved April 1 to the agency section overseeing Argentina and Brazil, according to a diplomat familiar with the agency’s operations. ElBaradei had no choice but to replace Charlier, the diplomat said. “There was no magic solution.  Iran will not give Charlier a visa.  Being unable to go into Iran, he could not do the job effectively enough.  Charlier was told of the decision last week,” said the diplomat. “Of course Iran cannot tell the IAEA who to assign to Iran,” the diplomat added.  “But they have the sovereign right to reject an inspector they may not like.  The IAEA cannot shoot its way into Iran or parachute people in.” “I know some (IAEA) member states will say the agency buckled to Iranian pressure.  But the IAEA has other very qualified personnel who can fill this job.  The IAEA cannot cling to one man in one position like this (at a time like this),” the diplomat said (Mark Heinrich, Reuters/Khaleej Times, Feb. 13). Back to top       Nuclear Weapons Designer Promotes Disarmament A leading U.S. nuclear weapons designer has said the United States should undertake a policy that ultimately leads to the complete elimination of the U.S. atomic arsenal, the San Francisco Chronicle reported today (see GSN, Feb. 6). Joseph Martz leads the team that is developing the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s design for the next-generation Reliable Replacement Warhead. The debate on nuclear weapons policy should focus on their elimination rather than on how many are needed in the coming years and how to build them, Martz said.  He argued that technological advances to warhead stewardship and design have enabled the United States to protect itself as it slowly disarms.  Washington should also finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Martz said (see GSN, Feb. 5). “The time is right,” he said.  “A confluence of events has now allowed the debate to progress, including the changes in Congress, the maturation of the stockpile stewardship program and the recognition by the military that RRW is feasible.  A few years ago, we didn’t have that.” The United States should over a number of years cut the number of warheads, deploying Reliable Replacement Warheads in the place of their aging predecessors.  Those new warheads themselves one day would be eliminated. The United States would then maintain a “virtual stockpile” that would allow to assemble warheads from stockpiled components if necessary.  The U.S. nuclear laboratories are already capable of doing that in short order, Martz told the Chronicle. “I’m offering through our technological achievements the security we need to enter into a real discussion” of nuclear disarmament, he said. “I’m trying to offer solutions that say, ‘How can we get the benefits of deterrence without having to put thousands of warheads on hair-trigger alert?’” Martz added. Martz said he believes that security problems at the New Mexico laboratory (see GSN, Feb. 1) would lead Washington to select the Reliable Replacement Warhead design developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Previous reports have indicated that design that merges the best components from both submissions would be selected (see GSN, Jan. 8; James Sterngold, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 13). Back to top

FDA Gives Fast-Track Status to Anthrax Drug The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given fast-track status for licensing an existing anthrax vaccine for use after exposure to prevent infection, biopharmaceutical firm Emergent BioSolutions said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 15, 2006). BioThrax is presently the only drug approved for use prior to anthrax infection. The company plans to seek FDA approval for using the vaccine along with antibiotics as a “post-exposure prophylaxis” against infection.  Fast-track status “expedites the development and review of a drug that is intended for the treatment of a serious life-threatening condition and demonstrates the potential to address an unmet medical need for such a condition,” Emergent said in a press release. Clinical and nonclinical trials are ongoing, the company said (Emergent BioSolutions release, Feb. 12). Back to top

Value of “Hit to Kill” Interceptors for National Missile Defense Ambiguous, Congressional Report Says U.S. efforts over three decades to produce “hit-to-kill” interceptors for a national missile defense have produced results that are “mixed and ambiguous,” the Congressional Research Service said last month (see GSN, Sept. 12, 2006). Kinetic energy interceptors are intended to strike a target directly, destroying or rendering the weapon inoperable or diverting it from its course.  The United States has operated four ballistic missile defense development programs using the concept since the early 1980s, most recently the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program.  It has spent roughly $100 billion on the effort. Seven of 18 intercept tests under the four programs have hit their targets, a 39 percent success rate, the research service said.  Under the current program, there have been three failures in five intercept tests.  Failures have been attributed to problems with program hardware and software, silos and target launches. “The data on the U.S. flight test effort to develop a national missile defense system remains mixed and ambiguous,” according to a CRS report. “There is no recognizable pattern to explain this record nor is there conclusive evidence of a learning curve over more than two decades of developmental testing,” the report states.  “In addition, the test scenarios are considered by some not to be operational tests and could be more realistic in nature; they see these tests as more of a laboratory or developmental effort.” There is “insufficient empirical data to support a clear answer” on whether the existing national missile defense system, with interceptors in Alaska and California, could protect the United States against attack by long-range ballistic missiles, the report says. Theater missile defense efforts involving kinetic energy interceptors appear more promising, the research service said. The Patriot Advanced Capability 3 since 1997 has a 78 percent success rate in 27 intercept tests.  All but one of seven intercept tests of the Aegis ballistic missile defense system proved successful between 2002 and 2005 using submarine-launched Standard Missile 3 Block 1 interceptors. The current configuration of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system has also had successful intercepts in two of three tests (see GSN, Jan. 29; Congressional Research Service updated report, Jan. 5). Back to top       Polish Leaders Discuss U.S. Missile Defense Plans Leading Polish political leaders met yesterday to debate the possibility of hosting U.S. missile interceptors on Polish soil, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 1). Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski spoke with leaders of the six political parties in parliament, according to AP. “All views must be heard,” said government spokesman Jan Dziedziczak. Under the U.S. plan, Poland would host missile interceptors and a missile tracking radar would be based in the Czech Republic. Polish critics of the plan have expressed fear that the missile site could become a military target for Russian weapons or for terrorists, AP reported.  Russian leaders have repeatedly protested the plan, arguing that the interceptors would be able to strike Russian strategic missiles (see related GSN story, today; Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Feb. 12). U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, recently dismissed that notion. “We are doing this in support of our friends in Europe,” he told an international security conference in Munich last week.  “The stuff being installed provides no protection against Russia; it is to provide protection for our friends and allies” (Ian Traynor, The Guardian, Feb. 12). Back to top

Putin Says U.S. Policy Leads WMD Proliferation Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the Bush administration Saturday, charging that U.S. foreign policy is encouraging the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Feb. 1). Speaking at a Munich conference attended by many international defense ministers, Putin delivered an unusually blunt address. “This conference’s structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms,” he began.  “This conference’s format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems.” Putin then criticized U.S. military activities abroad, saying they were possible only in the absence of the balancing power the Soviet Union enjoyed during the Cold War. “Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force — military force — in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts,” he said.  “One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way.” U.S. power, however, was not leading to greater international security, Putin said. “The force’s dominance inevitably encourages a number of countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  Moreover, significantly new threats — though they were also well-known before — have appeared, and today threats such as terrorism have taken on a global character,” he said. Military action is not necessary to address international security threats, Putin said, citing the peaceful demise of the Soviet Union. “Did not our country have a peaceful transition to democracy?  Indeed, we witnessed a peaceful transformation of the Soviet regime — a peaceful transformation!  And what a regime!  With what a number of weapons, including nuclear weapons!” he said.  “Why should we start bombing and shooting now at every available opportunity?” Putin urged the United States to pursue nuclear disarmament more actively, warning that failure to do so would create growing international tensions. “The potential danger of the destabilization of international relations is connected with obvious stagnation in the disarmament issue,” he told the conference. He reaffirmed Russia’s commitment to the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, in which Washington and Moscow agreed to cut the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to less than 2,200 each (see GSN, Dec. 7, 2006).  Putin did, however, lament the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, under which the United States and Soviet Union destroyed an entire class of nuclear missiles (see GSN, Feb. 8).  Putin complained that other nations were building just such missiles while Russia was bound to abstain from having them. Putin also criticized U.S. plans to deploy missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic (see GSN, Feb. 1). “Plans to expand certain elements of the antimissile defense system to Europe cannot help but disturb us,” he said. “Who needs the next step of what would be, in this case, an inevitable arms race?” “Missile weapons with a range of about five to eight thousand kilometers that really pose a threat to Europe do not exist in any of the so-called problem countries.  And in the near future and prospects, this will not happen and is not even foreseeable,” he added.  “And any hypothetical launch of, for example, a North Korean rocket to American territory through Western Europe obviously contradicts the laws of ballistics.  As we say in Russia, it would be like using the right hand to reach the left ear.” The only area of agreement Putin found between Washington and Moscow was over plans to create an international nuclear fuel supply system that would keep developing nations from seeking their own ability to produce materials that could be used for nuclear power plant fuel or nuclear weapons (see GSN, Feb. 8). “The latest initiatives put forward by American President George W. Bush are in conformity with the Russian proposals,” he said.  “It is precisely our countries, with leading nuclear and missile capabilities, that must act as leaders in developing new, stricter nonproliferation measures. Russia is ready for such work.  We are engaged in consultations with our American friends.” “In general, we should talk about establishing a whole system of political incentives and economic stimuli whereby it would not be in states’ interests to establish their own capabilities in the nuclear fuel cycle but they would still have the opportunity to develop nuclear energy and strengthen their energy capabilities” (Transcript/Washington Post, Feb. 10). Back to top       Radioactive Material Lost With “Foam Pig” A “foam pig” containing a small amount of radioactive material has gone missing in the Gulf of Mexico, Bloomberg reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 5, 2006). The British oil firm BP Plc uses the pig maintain an underwater pipeline in the gulf.  The device carries a silver wire containing tantalum 182, which is used to track its location in the pipeline. The International Atomic Energy Agency says tantalum 182 has a sub-category 3 radiation level.  That indicates that the material is “very unlikely” to inflict permanent harm on people. BP lost control of the device Saturday, and it rose from 5,000 feet underwater to the surface of the gulf, Bloomberg reported.  The pig is expected to be “difficult to find because it will be floating just above or below the surface” and ultimately will submerge again, according to BP Pipelines of North America. “We carried out a search and we are continuing to work on how best to locate the pig,” said BP spokesman Neil Chapman (Sonja Franklin, Bloomberg, Feb. 12). Back to top

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