By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett yesterday called for the world’s nuclear weapons states to recommit to eventual disarmament (see GSN, June 25). Returning to the “grand bargain” written into the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — the idea that non-nuclear states would not seek atomic weapons while the nuclear states would eventually disarm — is necessary to continue the fight against proliferation, she said (see GSN, May 14). “The need for such vision and action is all too apparent,” Beckett said, speaking here at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference. “Today the nonproliferation regime is under particular pressure.” In addition to the nuclear saga in North Korea, the current push for fuel cycle technology in Iran is “raising the specter of a huge push for proliferation in what is already one of the most unstable parts of the world.” One challenge is balancing the expansion of nuclear energy programs with concerns about the spread of sensitive fuel cycle technologies that could be applied to military ends (see GSN, June 25). “How do we do so without prejudice to the economic development of countries that have every right under the NPT to develop a civil nuclear capability?” Beckett said. She called for development of a multilateral disarmament framework when the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia expires in 2009 (see GSN, June 22). Under the 1991 pact, the two nations agreed to reduce the number of deployed warheads to less than 6,000 each with no more than 1,600 delivery vehicles. The treaty allows inspectors from both countries to verify deployment of strategic warheads by the other nation. Moscow and Washington agreed in the 2002 Moscow Treaty to reduce their counts of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the end of 2012, but the new pact has no verification provisions. Beckett also urged nations to work toward consensus at the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference (see GSN, May 27, 2005). “By the time that is held, we need the international community to be foursquare and united behind a global nonproliferation regime,” she said. “We can’t afford for that conference to be a fractious one. Rather we need to strengthen the NPT in all its aspects.” While the stance of the international community on nonproliferation has been “remarkably resilient” for the past 40 years, a “genuine commitment and concrete action on disarmament” is crucial to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, Beckett said. If it appears weapons states have completely abandoned their obligations to move toward disarmament under Article 6 of the nonproliferation treaty, those states seeking nuclear weapons will be provided rhetorical ammunition to support their pursuits, she said. “Our efforts on nonproliferation will be dangerously undermined if others believe, however unfairly, that the terms of the grand bargain have changed,” Beckett said. “We risk helping Iran and North Korea in their efforts to muddy the water.” Beckett pointed to stalled progress in arms control discussions between the United States and Russia, the fact that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has not yet entered into force, and a fissile material cutoff treaty that has failed to materialize as evidence of stagnated disarmament efforts. “They all point to absence of debate at the highest levels on disarmament and a collective inability thus far to come up with a clear forward plan,” she said. “U.S. ratification would provide a great deal of impetus” for bringing the test ban treaty into force, Beckett said. Creation of a fissile material cutoff treaty, meanwhile, would “signal to the rest of the world that the race for more and bigger weapons is over and the direction from now on will be down and not up.” While the conditions permitting the abolition of nuclear weapons are not currently in place, losing sight of that ultimate goal would be a “grave mistake,” she said, suggesting such a loss of faith could erode support for arms reductions. “If there will always be nuclear weapons, what does it matter if there are 1,000 or 10,000,” she said. In building an impetus for global nuclear disarmament, Beckett called for the United Kingdom to become a “disarmament laboratory,” to be at the lead of both the “thinking and the practical work.” She said the government’s efforts would include participating in a think-tank study on what would be required to rid the world of nuclear weapons. In beginning her address, Beckett referred to a January Wall Street Journal commentary in which former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn called for a concerted effort to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons (see GSN, Jan. 22). Speaking earlier in the day at the conference Nunn returned to the principles outlined in that joint statement. “I have slowly but surely come to the realization that the United States cannot be protected without taking the steps that we outlined in that article,” he said. Such a forward-looking disarmament vision is necessary to pull together the international cooperation required to realize a world without the most destructive weapons. “Without the vision I do not believe we can get the cooperation and without the cooperation we cannot protect the security of the United States and the world,” Nunn said. Considering the “earthquakes” of the Iranian nuclear crisis and the proliferation of nuclear power in the face of concerns about global climate change, “we are approaching a perfect storm,” he said. The world could soon see a great expansion in the proliferation of fissile material production and sensitive nuclear know-how, Nunn said. “We are at a precipice now.”
By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. plans to field a next-generation nuclear warhead would put the “final nail in the coffin of nuclear testing,” the former head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday (see GSN, June 8). Speaking at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference here, Linton Brooks said the nonproliferation community is completely mistaken about the implications of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, while conceding that 80 to 90 percent of the audience would likely disagree with him. “That isn’t an arms race issue,” he said. The Bush administration’s first planned Reliable Replacement Warhead, a nuclear device intended to be easier to maintain and produce than those manufactured during the Cold War, would replace the W-76 warheads carried by submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Administration officials have pledged that any new warhead could be placed into the U.S. stockpile without requiring explosive underground testing. The United States has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Critics have expressed concern that the United States would need to detonate a new, untested weapon before it is deployed. They argued that the existing stockpile is safely maintained, and that developing a new warhead would send the wrong message to the international community regarding U.S. intentions for its nuclear arsenal. Repeating a point that has been argued by the administration, Brooks said a U.S. return to nuclear testing would be only be needed to certify the viability of the current stockpile rather than to prove a new design. “The only conceivable reason for the United States to consider resuming nuclear testing would be a serious problem on a warhead for which we had no substitute. And the only warhead for which we have no substitute is the W-76,” he said. With the Reliable Replacement Warhead, “you dramatically reduce the chance that there will be a nuclear weapons testing issue in this country, regardless of what happens with the CTBT.” The Reliable Replacement Warhead deflates the technical argument that had been leveled against ratification of the test ban treaty, Brooks said, calling it a program with the greatest potential nonproliferation benefit in the coming decade. Nonproliferation opponents of the program have it “exactly backwards,” said Brooks, who was forced out of his job following a series of security breakdowns at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (see GSN, Jan. 5). “I think the nonproliferation community should be marching in the streets demanding that we go forward with the Reliable Replacement Warhead.” The ability to produce more robust warheads more quickly would allow the United States to draw down its large stockpile of an estimated 10,000 deployed and reserve nuclear weapons, Brooks said. A large number of weapons are kept in reserve to offset potential technical problems in the arsenal. The new warhead, if produced, would also have increased safety and security measures built into its design and would be produced without some of the most toxic materials used in Cold War-era weapons, such as beryllium. The replacement for the W-76 warhead is intended to be just the first iteration of the Reliable Replacement Warhead. More broadly, the program is designed to replace a number of warhead designs fielded by the United States, officials have said. The technical and political conditions that would allow elimination of the U.S. nuclear arsenal are in the distant future, Brooks said. Until then there is a need to balance both continuing security and nonproliferation concerns. “The Reliable Replacement Warhead will be a mechanism to shift that balance in favor of nonproliferation,” he said. A House version of the fiscal 2008 energy and water appropriations bill has completely eliminated funding for the RRW program, for which the president had requested $88.8 million (see GSN, May 24). The Senate has yet to release funding levels in its version of the funding bill. As far as what will emerge at the end of the congressional budget process, “my guess is that it will be more than zero and less than the administration asked for,” Brooks said.
Officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in North Korea today for talks on overseeing the halt of operations at the nation’s plutonium-producing nuclear reactor, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 25). Closing the Yongbyon reactor would be the first step of North Korean denuclearization, according to an agreement reached at the six-party talks in February. “We are always needing to be optimistic. I think the D.P.R.K. will now do what they have (been) asked to do,” IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen said before flying from Beijing to Pyongyang. The IAEA team is expected to spend three days in North Korea, setting up plans for the agency to monitor that the nuclear facilities and reprocessing site had been closed and sealed, Reuters reported. This is the first visit by IAEA technical personnel to North Korea since December 2002, when Pyongyang ejected agency inspectors and then announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (Lucy Hornby, Reuters, June 26). North Korean officials seemed ready for negotiations, Heinonen said upon arrival. “It seems to be a good start,” he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview (Alexa Olesen, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, June 26). “They are the one who (will) shut it down and not us so they have to make their own plans. How long it will take is a little bit up to them,” Heinonen said earlier in the day. The Yongbyon reactor could be fully disabled by the end of 2007, according to the lead U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks. However, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the negotiations are not likely to go smoothly. “Usually in the six-party process, if there’s a problem out there, then the problem will arise,” he said, according to AP. “We’re really on the edge of all this,” he said yesterday. There is still “a lot of work to do,” according to Hill. “But I think what we’re working on right now is a very important step, which is to shut down the facility and prevent the production of additional plutonium.” Hill said he hopes negotiators would address “end-game issues” next year, including elimination of North Korean nuclear fuel stores (Foster Klug, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, June 25). Hill said North Korean officials last week agreed to provide details of its suspected uranium enrichment program, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Full declaration of the country’s nuclear program is a component of the February deal. “We had a very good discussion about it, I am not going to get into the specifics of it except to say that they acknowledged that this issue must be resolved to mutual satisfaction,” said Hill, who visited Pyongyang last week. The United States confronted North Korea with intelligence on the program in 2002. That accusation — publicly denied by Pyongyang — led to the collapse of the 1994 Agreed Framework freezing the Stalinist state’s nuclear program and to the nuclear standoff (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, June 25). Various experts continued to voice doubts about North Korea’s ultimate willingness to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. “My skepticism comes from the fact that I don’t think any country that has actually got nuclear weapons has given them up,” said Bobby Ray Inman, former head of the U.S. National Security Agency. He said today that the most other nations might hope for is that Pyongyang would agree not to build any more weapons, AFP reported. The major fear is that that cash-strapped nation might sell a weapon “to somebody who would be much more willing to use it,” Inman said (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, June 26). “If North Korea doesn’t want to give up its nuclear weapons at all and is purely prolonging the process, the United States is only buying time,” said Korea expert Zhang Liangui of the Chinese Central Party School in Beijing, according to the Los Angeles Times (Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times, June 26).
International Atomic Energy Agency officials hope to visit Iran “as early as practicable” to follow up on a recent Iranian offer to assist the agency’s efforts to research the country’s nuclear activities, agency spokesman Melissa Fleming said yesterday (see GSN, June 25). Iranian nuclear envoy Ali Larijani met Friday with agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, and the two agreed to “develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues” about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Fleming said. The U.S. State Department expressed doubt that Iran’s actions would reduce concern over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions or lead to Iran heeding U.N. Security Council calls for a nuclear freeze. “I don’t think Iran’s track record is particularly noteworthy or particularly likely to give me or anyone else confidence that anything will come of these discussions,” said spokesman Tom Casey. “We would certainly like to see them comply, but to date, they haven’t.” IAEA officials, however, have expressed hope that new talks could prove useful. “I have been warning about a brewing confrontation that needs to be defused,” ElBaradei said last week. “Establishing clear facts on the ground as we do, as our job is, will enable the development of a political solution” (Mark Landler, New York Times, June 26). Meanwhile, three Japanese banks have decided to conduct no new business with Iran, a move that reflects U.S. efforts to persuade other nations to unilaterally ramp up pressure against Tehran, the Financial Times reported Sunday (see GSN, May 4). The Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui have told Iranian officials they will take on no additional Iranian business ventures, according to a senior banker. In addition, Japan’s private sector has resisted Iranian efforts to conduct transactions in non-U.S. currencies, the Times reported. Iranian officials have said such financial sanctions have had little effect, in particular because high oil prices have boosted Iran’s revenue stream (see GSN, June 13). Nevertheless, U.S. officials have said their efforts are bearing fruit. “Most of the world’s top financial institutions have now dramatically reduced their Iranian business or stopped it altogether,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said earlier this month. “For the most part, they are not legally required to take these steps but have decided, as a matter of prudence and integrity, that they do not want to be the bankers for such a regime” (Dinmore/Pilling, Financial Times, June 24).
An Egyptian nuclear engineer received a life prison sentence yesterday after being convicted of spying for Israel in his home country, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 18). Mohammed Sayed Saber, 35, was charged in February with selling stolen “important documents” for $17,000 to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. At that time he was on sabbatical in Saudi Arabia from his work with the Egyptian Atomic Energy Agency. An Egyptian state security court also issued life sentences for a Japanese national and an Irish citizen, who were tried in absentia, a court official told AP. Saber had argued that the documents he gave to Mossad would not harm Egyptian security, and that before being arrested he had notified the Egyptian Embassy in Riyadh of his actions (Maggie Michael, Associated Press/Washington Post, June 25).
By Seamus Kraft
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers yesterday charged the Bush administration with moving at a “glacial pace” to secure nuclear material around the world. Keeping such material out of terrorist hands should be a more important security goal than addressing Iran or North Korea, they told a nonproliferation conference (see GSN, June 18). “Any two Cal-Tech students could design a bomb for you with published materials. The only obstacle is access to radiological materials,” said Representative Adam Schiff (Calif.), speaking on a panel at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference. “There are too many sites with enriched material, we have been too slow to secure them, too slow on Nunn-Lugar, and it is too low a diplomatic priority,” he added, referring to Cooperative Threat Reduction programs to secure nuclear and other WMD materials in the former Soviet Union. Representative John Spratt (S.C.) agreed. “There is a vast supermarket of fissile material which, if tapped, could teach us a sobering lesson,” he said. The lawmakers agreed that the furor surrounding the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs is overblown (see related GSN stories, today). “This administration has had a lack of imagination” on nuclear issues, Schiff said. He said he worried that the suspected or known weapons programs of rogue states became diplomatic priorities only because they received “sexier” coverage. Amy Woolf, of the Congressional Research Service challenged Congress to take on a more substantive debate of nuclear policy. “Both parties are asking broad questions around the 2008 elections about why we have nuclear weapons, which is good,” she said. “But there is a pingpong effect with partisan talking points on nuclear policy and nonproliferation. Everyone is talking back and forth, past each other.” The House’s two-year election cycle plays an important role in the lack of substance, Woolf said. Most lawmakers are reluctant to cede valuable campaign time to master the arcane and detailed nuances of nuclear policy, she added. Even so, Woolf predicted that the Democrat-controlled Congress might increasingly challenge the Bush administration on nuclear issues as the 2008 elections approach. Both Democrats and Republicans might cast doubt on the wisdom of new nuclear technology, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead, while Iran and North Korea loom large on the campaign trail, she added (see related GSN story, today). “If we acquire new nukes, we appear to be uncommitted to our nonproliferation goals and we will lose allies in a fight,” she said. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, while asking a question, offered a longer view of the issue. “Nuclear weapons are never in our interest, will never be in our interest. All of you, get that into your heads,” he said to resounding applause.
By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — An Indian negotiator showed little flexibility yesterday in his nation’s position toward finalizing a bilateral nuclear trade agreement with the United States (see GSN, June 8). Principal negotiator S. Jaishankar defended India’s nonproliferation record and cautioned U.S. officials not to view the pending deal as an arms control agreement. Jaishankar has held intensive talks this year with U.S. officials, particularly Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, to try to finalize the trade deal calling for the supply of U.S. nuclear technology in exchange for India opening its civilian nuclear activities to international monitoring. India “has an impeccable record on both export controls and safeguards and is prepared to assume the responsibilities and practices of leading states with advanced nuclear technology,” he said at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference. India has complained that legislation to exempt India from U.S. nuclear nonproliferation laws is incomplete because some measures remain in place, including a U.S. right to demand the return of nuclear materials and technology if New Delhi tests another nuclear weapon. Those retained measures, Jaishankar said, have in effect changed the deal announced by U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2005. He suggested that India was not willing to make any major compromises. “Any attempt at rewriting it would endanger a carefully crafted agreement,” he said. Indian officials have asked the Bush administration to persuade Congress to amend the exemption legislation to remove the remaining nonproliferation restrictions. Still, despite months of negotiating difficulty on completing the final agreement, Jaishankar said the two sides were close to eliminating the division between them. “As the other side agrees with me, the gap will be closed,” he joked.
| 
Back to top
