By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire
VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board argued today over Iran’s nuclear program as it considers reducing aid to the nation (see GSN, March 5).
In the only significant official action of this week’s meeting, the board is examining agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s decision to cancel nearly two dozen agency projects. ElBaradei took the action to comply with a December U.N. Security Council resolution that banned international support for Iran’s nuclear energy program. He issued a list of cancellations in early February and began to institute the cuts immediately on an interim basis pending board review (see GSN, Feb. 9). The European Union led the rhetorical charge against Iran today, criticizing Tehran’s refusal to heed the December council resolution. “The EU deplores the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not complied with the terms of the United Nations Security Council resolution,” said German Ambassador Klaus-Peter Gottwald, speaking for the EU countries on the 35-nation IAEA board. “Iran has failed to suspend all enrichment and enrichment-related activities and appears determined to pursue these activities on an even larger scale.” “Obviously, we think that is an unacceptable behavior,” he later told reporters. Uncharacteristically quiet, U.S. officials offered no public statements or briefings at this board meeting. One U.S. official privately said the delegation was allowing officials in New York to take the diplomatic lead while they negotiated a new council resolution on Iran (see related GSN story, today). Even in his private statement delivered within the boardroom, U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte was unusually measured. “The United States remains gravely concerned about the implications of Iran’s long-standing noncooperation with its IAEA-related obligations,” Schulte told the board. “We are concerned because of what noncooperation implies about whether Iran’s nuclear program is solely peaceful.” This quiet declaration about the implications of Tehran’s behavior contrasts greatly with a 2005 statement to the board in which Ambassador Jackie Sanders accused Iran of “being willing — and apparently able — to cynically manipulate the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Protesting U.S. diplomatic strategies, Iran’s top official here complained that his country has provided all the cooperation required of it and that the continuing crisis can be blamed on a handful of nations. “A few members gather together, pass a resolution, dictate to the IAEA what to do, what projects to accept, what projects to delete,” Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters. “This is ridiculous. This is [the] unfortunate situation we are facing.” He said Iran was willing to provide even more cooperation, but would not enter into any negotiations that required suspension of nuclear activities, work he said is Iran’s “inalienable right.” “Iran must have nuclear technology and enrichment. This is a reality. I know that Americans do not want the world [to] know this reality,” Soltanieh said. “They have to swallow this reality,” he added. “That is the whole issue,” he summed up. “Our red line is our inalienable right and exercise of that right. Other than that, we can negotiate.” Other dissent for the cancellation of technical assistance came from the Nonaligned Movement and the Arab League. The Nonaligned Movement, representing many developing nations, cautioned against using agency aid as a political lever. “NAM reiterates that the technical cooperation program should not be used as a tool for political purposes and considers that decisions and actions regarding this issue should not jeopardize the credibility of the agency and the integrity of its programs,” said a NAM statement delivered by Cuba. The Arab League circulated a letter protesting the agency’s “double standards” regarding Israel and other nations. Omani Ambassador Mohamed al-Riyami signed the Feb. 23 letter to ElBaradei on behalf of the Arab League. Noting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s recent near-acknowledgement of his country’s nuclear weapons (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2006), the letter complained of “existing cooperation programs between the agency and Israel” despite Jerusalem’s suspected arsenal and its refusal to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “The Arab states reserve their right to take all the necessary measures to deal with the threat posed by the Israeli nuclear capabilities,” the letter closes.
By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged the Bush administration yesterday to ratchet up the financial pressure on the Iranian government (see GSN, Jan. 3). Both the committee’s leading Democrat and Republican are proposing bills to make investment in Iran more difficult, further isolating Tehran as it pursues nuclear fuel cycle technology in defiance of a U.N. order. While Iranian officials contend their nuclear research is for peaceful energy-production purposes, the United States and other nations believe it is part of a weapons program (see GSN, Feb. 8). Efforts to sanction and economically isolate Iran, however, are complicated by the fact that the defiant Islamic nation sits on vast oil reserves and the world remains hungry for oil. Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) accused the Bush administration of failing to enforce sanctions on companies investing in Iran’s energy sector. “Until now, abusing its waiver authority and other flexibility in the law, the executive branch has never sanctioned any foreign oil company which invested in Iran,” Lantos said. “Those halcyon days are over.” The committee’s highest-ranking Republican echoed that charge. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) called attention to recent reports that Chinese, Australian, European and Malaysian firms are planning to invest billions of dollars in Iran’s energy industry. “Rather than making it clear to these entities and their governments that we will implement the Iran Sanctions Act to the fullest extent, the Department of State refuses to enforce the sanctions,” she said. “We must hold export credit agencies, insurers and other financial institutions accountable for their facilitation of investments in Iran’s oil industry and subject them to sanctions as well.” The act allows for the United States to issue a variety of sanctions on entities doing business with Iran, including preventing companies investing in Iran from raising capital in U.S. financial markets. Lantos called for aggressive sanctioning of Royal Dutch Shell if it moves forward with a proposed $10 billion deal with Iran to develop a natural gas field. Malaysia, in the early stages of a similar deal, should also face sanctions if it is completed, he said. Big oil, which has “cravenly turned a blind eye to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons,” has come to assume that sanctions will simply not be imposed, Lantos said. “This charade will now come to a long overdue end.” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s point man on the Iranian nuclear crisis, made it clear in committee testimony yesterday that the administration has warned oil companies of potential consequences of Iranian investment. “It is important that companies not invest in the long-term or the medium-term in Iran’s oil and gas sectors,” he said. “We have gone to the CEOs and the corporate officers of many of these companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, to say this is not a good idea.” Lantos’ legislation would end the administration’s ability to grant waivers for the sanctions act. It would also prohibit U.S. nuclear trade agreements with any nation deemed to be aiding Iran’s atomic program. In response to committee criticism regarding enforcement of the Iran Sanctions Act, Burns said diplomatic pressure is better directed at Iran rather than U.S. allies. Directing financial penalties against those involved in a coalition to stop Iranian nuclear research could jeopardize that cooperation, Burns suggested. Lantos’ bill also called for import sanctions to be levied again on all Iranian imports to the United States. Such sanctions, on items such as rugs, were lifted under the Clinton administration in an effort to encourage a dialogue with Tehran. “It is self-evident that this diplomatic breakthrough has not occurred, and the favor offered Iran will now be revoked,” Lantos said. Ros-Lehtinen’s legislation, supported by Lantos, would require U.S. government pension funds to pull investments from any company that has invested more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector. She pushed for a two-pronged approach toward increasing financial leverage on Iran. The first is enforcing current U.S. sanctions law. The second, she said, “includes convincing other nations that they must take effective action and not simply hide behind the U.N. Security Council to avoid their obligations as responsible nations.” Many, including members of Congress, have criticized the first round of U.N. sanctions on Iran as anemic, but Burns assured the committee yesterday that they have had an impact and have amplified internal Iranian divisions on the nuclear issue (see GSN, Feb. 15). The U.N. Security Council is drafting a second set of sanctions after Tehran failed to halt uranium enrichment activities during a 60-day window set last December (see GSN, March 6).
The United States plans to retire its nuclear-capable Advanced Cruise Missile as part of its effort to meet warhead-reduction obligations under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the Federation of American Scientists said today (see GSN, March 2). There are roughly 400 of the missiles deployed at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The missiles carry W80-1 warheads with yields of five to 150 kilotons and would be dropped by strategic bombers. Federation analyst Hans Kristensen found that there was no proposed funding for the missiles in the fiscal 2008 Air Force budget. The service subsequently acknowledged that the missiles were to be retired. It was not immediately known when the missiles would be fully pulled from service, but it is expected to happen over the next year, the federation said. The Moscow Treaty requires Russia and the United States to reduce their stockpile of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 2,200 by 2012. The United States has two cruise missiles in its nuclear arsenal. The Advanced Cruise Missile is the only one with radar-evading stealth technology (Federation of American Scientists, March 7).
U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill expressed satisfaction yesterday his two-day meeting with his North Korean counterpart, but continued to press the regime to “come clean” about its suspected uranium enrichment program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 7). The sessions in New York City were aimed at further the Feb. 13 agreement in which Pyongyang agreed to nuclear disarmament in exchange for fuel aid and other concessions from other nations in the six-party talks. “These were very good, very businesslike, very comprehensive discussions,” the assistant secretary of state said after eight hours of talks with Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. “For now, I think we feel we’re on the right track.” “The atmosphere was very good, constructive and serious,” Kim said. The first part of the agreement calls for North Korea within 60 days to halt work at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and to allow international atomic inspectors back into the country. The Yongbyon reactor is believed to have produced roughly 110 pounds of plutonium, which “we have reason to believe has been weaponized,” Hill said. Hill said he “made the point forcefully today” that uranium must be included in denuclearization, AP reported. Questions have arisen recently about the U.S. intelligence on Pyongyang’s suspected efforts toward production-scale uranium enrichment (see GSN, Feb. 28). U.S. officials have responded that they are sure North Korea once operated such a program, but that its current status is less clear. “They need to come clean” on purchases of centrifuges, aluminum tubes and other components of a uranium enrichment program and then give up on the program, Hill said. Experts from Pyongyang and Washington will meet “to get to the bottom of this matter,” he said. Resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries would be linked directly to North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, Hill said. He could not set a schedule for completion of that work. “We believe that the faster we go the steadier we’ll be,” Hill said. “Let’s us to this step-by-step, get through 60 days and take the next thing, which I think is measured in months and not years, and then go on from there” (Edith Lederer, Associated Press, March 7). Kim reportedly said during a seminar Monday that North Korea would “act transparently on all our nuclear programs including HEU,” the Chosun Ilbo daily reported (Paul Eckert, Reuters I/Washington Post, March 6). Talks between Japan and North Korea on establishment of diplomatic relations temporarily broke down today over the issue of abduction of Japanese citizens, Reuters reported. During a morning session in Vietnam, Japan demanded the return of citizens abducted during the 1970s and 1980s. North Korean diplomats “reacted angrily,” a Japanese diplomat said. “They said they had done all they could, and therefore it is meaningless to have any more discussions,” said Japanese delegation chief Koichi Haraguchi. The North Koreans canceled an afternoon meeting and it appeared that the talks were finished. However, Haraguchi announced that diplomats would meet again tomorrow morning “to discuss the abductions issue and normal diplomatic relations” (Teruaki Ueno, Reuters II/Yahoo!News, March 7).
Prospects for levying new economic sanctions on Iran faded yesterday, undermining earlier hopes among Western powers that the U.N. Security Council could act quickly to punish Tehran for its refusal to curb its nuclear program, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 6). U.N. ambassadors from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany met yesterday in New York but could not agree on the elements of a draft resolution. Their meeting, and a few other diplomatic conferrals over the past week, was spurred by Iran’s refusal to heed a council deadline set in December to freeze its uranium enrichment activities. “There’s a general agreement on what the elements are and on some of them I think there’s a good understanding of where we might be heading, but it's too early to say we have reached agreement,” said acting U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff. One diplomat said it was unlikely that a draft sanctions resolution would be readied this week. Diplomats at the session said the next resolution would contain another 60-day deadline for Iran to suspend key parts of it nuclear program. New sanctions envisioned by the six nations include freezing the foreign-held assets of an expanded list of Iranian individuals and firms, limiting economic incentives that some nations use to encourage their businesses to do business with Iran, and banning the travel of certain Iranian officials, Reuters reported (Reuters I/New York Times, March 7). For its part, Iran warned today of a “serious” response if the council approves new sanctions. “If they go ahead in an extreme manner and issue a resolution, they will receive a serious answer and the conditions will change,” said top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 7). Perhaps anticipating a reduced opportunity for international help with its nuclear industry, Iran announced yesterday that it had begun to construct its first indigenously made nuclear power plant. Russia is nearing completion of a light-water power reactor at Bushehr, but a smaller reactor would be produced independently, said Atomic Energy Organization chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh. “At the demand of the president, the construction of the first domestic nuclear power plant with capacity of 360 [megawatts] has started,” he said, without providing additional details (Reuters II, March 6). A funding dispute has threatened to stall the opening of the Bushehr reactor, and Russian officials visited Iran today to seek a resolution, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 22). Russia has charged Iran with missing payments for the reactor, a claim Iran has partially acknowledged but blamed on Moscow’s refusal to accept payment in euros instead of dollars. Access to dollars has been affected by recent U.S. efforts to persuade international banks to reduce their cooperation with Iranian businesses. “The main issue on the agenda of today's meeting is to discuss the crisis situation connected to the lack of funding of the project by the Iranian side,” said Vladimir Pavlov, a Russian nuclear official (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, March 7). Addressing concerns that the United States might use military strikes to derail Iran’s nuclear program, Aghazadeh said Iran’s nuclear skills were irreversible. Iran currently has a “few thousand nuclear experts,” he said. “Now even if we imagine that they (the enemies) attack our facilities, the science of this technology is now in our young peoples’ brains. They cannot do anything in our young peoples’ brains.” Furthermore, post-attack facilities would be constructed to be more secure. “Even if they attack our facilities a chance would be provided for us to build our power plants more carefully and take more action to protect our power plants,” he said (Reuters III/Washington Post, March 7).
A panel of British lawmakers said today that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s plan to replace the country’s Trident nuclear weapons system could undermine international nonproliferation efforts, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 1). Downing Street is seeking support from Parliament next week for development of a new $39 billion submarine fleet to carry the nuclear-tipped missiles. Such a decision could be “seized upon by would-be proliferators to justify their own efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,” the House of Commons Defense Select Committee said in a two-volume report. It also played down the significance of the government’s pledge to reduce the British nuclear arsenal from 200 to 160 warheads. Creation of a new missile fleet could indicate that “nuclear weapons are now a permanent feature of the international security environment,” David Broucher, who formerly led the British delegation at the U.N. Disarmament Conference, said in the report. Blair has argued that it would be “unwise and dangerous” for the United Kingdom to eliminate its nuclear stockpile, in light of the dangers from North Korea, Iran and terrorist organizations. A decision on replacing existing warheads is not expected until 2009, after Blair has left office, AP reported (Associated Press/New York Times, March 7).
A nuclear trade deal between India and the United States is progressing more slowly than predicted late last year by U.S. officials, according to Arms Control Today (see GSN, Jan. 16). While a U.S. official said last year that the deal could be finalized within six months if the two governments “move real fast” in 2007, Indian officials have not moved rapidly, the journal reported. New Delhi waited until late February to restart negotiations with Washington and is dragging its feet in talks on nuclear safeguards with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Congress last year approved in principle a deal that would allow India to engage in civilian nuclear trade with the United States despite having developed nuclear weapons outside the constraints of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Critics said the deal could allow India to significantly increase weapons production and could severely erode the nonproliferation regime keeping the spread of nuclear weapons in check. Supporters counter that it would bring New Delhi closer into the nonproliferation regime. Still, the deal remains far from completion. A U.S. official familiar with the deal’s progress told Arms Control Today that “about five issues” have yet to be resolved. The issues include New Delhi’s opposition to a termination clause killing nuclear trade if India conducts a nuclear weapons test and New Delhi’s push for the right to separate U.S.-origin nuclear waste into uranium and plutonium — fuels for both reactors and nuclear weapons. The two countries also must complete negotiations on a nuclear cooperation pact known as a 123 agreement. India must complete negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding a proposed inspection regime for its civilian nuclear facilities. The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, an international body regulating nuclear trade, must also reach consensus over the deal. Once that has been completed, the final deal must come back before Congress for approval (Wade Boese, Arms Control Today, March 2007).
The head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration stressed yesterday that there would be no new nuclear testing as the Bush administration moves forward with plans to create a new nuclear warhead, The Salt Lake Tribune reported (see GSN, March 5). Some have expressed concerns that the Reliable Replacement Warhead program would lead to a resumption of weapons testing, something the United States has not done since it began observing a self-imposed moratorium in 1992. “There will be no underground testing of RRW. Period,” said Thomas D’Agostino, acting administrator for the semiautonomous Energy Department agency. “That is a commitment that I and others in this administration have made repeatedly, including in testimony to Congress.” The United States has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. D’Agostino said the RRW initiative would be scrapped if testing were found to be necessary, according to the Tribune. New weapons historically had to be tested before being entered into the nation’s nuclear stockpile, said Robert Nelson, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. However, he said Congress would kill the program if there was “even a hint it might need to be tested.” Designing a nuclear weapon that does not need to be tested is “probably possible,” he said (Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune, March 7).
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