By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — A U.S. civil nuclear agreement long in the works with Russia could be scuttled over Moscow’s dealings with Iran (see GSN, July 3). Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin earlier this month signed a “123 agreement” — named for a section of the 1954 U.S. Atomic Energy Act — that could mean billions of dollars in nuclear trade for Russia. However, U.S. House and Senate efforts to address the Iranian nuclear crisis could prohibit the United States from entering into such an agreement with any country that is assisting Iran’s nuclear program or transferring conventional weapons to Tehran. Lawmakers in both houses have introduced their own versions of the Iran Counterproliferation Act, a measure intended to discourage nations and companies from cooperating with Iran. Under the Senate bill, Russia could not be the subject of a 123 agreement unless the U.S. president certifies that it has halted nuclear assistance and weapons transfers to Iran and, perhaps the highest bar and one outside Russia’s control, that Iran has “verifiable and irreversibly” dismantled its enrichment program. The House bill also explicitly defines Russia as a country assisting Iran’s nuclear program but does not contain the provision that Iran must disassemble its enrichment program — something Tehran has said it absolutely will not do — before a nuclear agreement with Moscow could be realized. Once the signed agreement is submitted to Congress, the legislative body has 90 days in which to object to the deal. If Congress does not issue a negative vote, it is enacted. No affirmative vote is required. Russia — unlike India, which is seeking a similar deal with the United States — would also not need an exemption from U.S. export law preventing nuclear trade with nations that have not joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The two versions of the bill dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, however, would almost certainly torpedo the Russian 123 agreement. “This is only one aspect (of the bill), but only in this one aspect I think it would pretty much shut down a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia,” said Sharon Squassoni, a nuclear expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The determinations required in the bills for a nuclear trade agreement with Russia set a “high hurdle,” she said. While neither bill has yet been passed, both were introduced with a significant number of co-sponsors, indicating broad support. The House legislation carries 315 co-sponsors and the Senate bill has 65. Russia, through a 123 agreement with the United States, could collect up to $20 billion yearly from supplying fuel cycle services, said Richard Weitz, a Russia expert at the Hudson Institute. U.S. law requires that spent nuclear fuel produced here and shipped to foreign countries cannot go to Russia without prior consent from Washington. That means Russia is unable to store for a fee nuclear fuel from South Korea, Taiwan and other countries that burn U.S. fuel. A 123 agreement, however, would change that. “It potentially could mean a lot of money,” Weitz said. Russia, in effect, wants a U.S. stamp of approval, said Jon Wolfsthal a former U.S. Energy Department official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “A big factor in the Russian interest in this is it would signal that it is now accepted by the United States as a normal peer in civil nuclear affairs,” he said. Regarding the legislation pending in Congress, Wolfsthal said Russia is likely in a “wait-and-see mode.” “The White House is likely to object to that bill on principle. My guess is they’ll try to get some waiver inserted,” he said. Wolfsthal said Congress seems to be acting on what are “largely legacy concerns.” In the 1990s U.S. officials were concerned about Russian assistance at the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran. It was the “umbrella under which technology was changing hands,” he said. “That no longer seems to be the case.” Russia has pulled back on Bushehr, leaving the reactor shy of completion, possibly under U.S. pressure in the midst of the Iranian nuclear standoff. Moscow has denied that is the reason, citing Iranian nonpayment to contractors (see GSN, May 17). Regardless of the status of the site, concerns over Russian nuclear assistance to Iran are not what they once were, and some now see the Bushehr program as a benefit in the debate over Iran’s enrichment program. Experts point out that once Bushehr is completed the low-enriched fuel would be supplied by Russia and then repatriated once it is burned. Such an arrangement serves to undermine Iran’s argument that it needs a domestic enrichment program, some experts have said. As far as concerns over transfer of sensitive technology and expertise, “they’ve just gone away,” Squassoni said. “We’ve pretty much demarched the Russians on that, and they’ve turned off that cooperation.” Iranian actions, particularly since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have done even more to bring the Russians around to the U.S. view on Tehran, she said. “We’re much more aligned in our views.” If the legislation is passed and blocks the U.S.-Russian civil nuclear agreement, it is unclear that it would serve the purpose Congress seems to hope it would, Wolfsthal said. The U.N. Security Council has enacted a series of resolutions censuring Iran which Russia could have blocked and did not, he noted. “We’ve got the people that run the nuclear complex largely on our side on Iran,” he said. “It’s not clear to me that the bills are going to affect the change that they want to be able to effect.”
The Bush administration officially outlined the terms of a nuclear trade deal with India today, acknowledging that the agreement reached last week calls for Washington to support Indian efforts to acquire nuclear fuel from other sources if U.S. supplies are cut off by legal requirements, the New York Times reported (see GSN, July 26). Under legislation approved by Congress last year, the United States would retain the right to demand the return of nuclear equipment and technology sold to India if the nation conducted another nuclear test. Indian officials had balked at those terms, and the Bush administration compromised by agreeing to aid India to weather a fuel cutoff by creating a fuel reserve and seeking alternative suppliers, according to the Times. The U.S. legislation, known as the Hyde Act, exempts India from decades of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation law that has denied nuclear trade with nations that do not belong to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or place all their nuclear facilities under international monitoring. Under the Bush administration plan, that stills requires another round of congressional approval, India will remain outside the treaty but will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect the nation’s civilian nuclear sector. The exemption “creates a double standard,” said Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.). “One set of rules for countries we like, another for countries we don’t.” “If you make an exception for India, we will be preaching from a barstool to the rest of the world,” Markey said. During “the first phase of negotiations with India, the administration made concessions that put the country on par with countries that have signed” the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, said Robert Einhorn of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Now we’ve gone beyond that, and given India something that we don’t give to Russia and China,” Einhorn added (David Sanger, New York Times, July 27).
A senior U.S. official said Washington cannot be sure that Pakistani groups are not still working to spread nuclear technology and know-how on the black market, the Press Trust of India reported yesterday (see GSN, June 29). “To say that there are no elements in Pakistan [spreading nuclear technology], I’m not sure I could say that,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “I cannot be sure that there are no private groups in Pakistan trying to reconstitute that type of capability.” Burns hedged about the existence of splinter cells spawned by the nuclear network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. “I cannot assert that no part of that network exists, but it’s my understanding based on conversations with the Pakistanis that the network has been fundamentally dismantled,” Burns added (Press Trust of India, July 26). Meanwhile, Australia today said it would not sell uranium to Pakistan, the Xinhua News Agency reported. “I don’t think there’s any prospect in the foreseeable future of exporting to Pakistan, unless Pakistan gets into some sort of system of U.N. inspections and control over its two civil nuclear facilities and it comes to Australia and seeks a nuclear safeguards agreement,” said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. “It doesn’t seem likely that’s about to happen.” The negative Australian answer came after Pakistan requested the same uranium deal Australia is pondering for India, Xinhua reported (Xinhua News Agency, July 27).
Nigeria’s top nuclear official said last week that tracking radioactive materials remains a challenge for the country, even as its new president pushes for nuclear power development, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 19, 2005). Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority Director Shamsudeen Elegba said in a speech that “we still have some challenges in the safety and security of radioactive sources” although his agency has tightened controls intended to stop smuggling of radioactive materials. He said Nigeria’s major shortcomings include a lack of radioactive materials storage facilities and port radiation detectors, poor tracking records for radioactive materials and insufficient training. Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua this week called for expansion of the nation’s nuclear energy program. “We need to develop the capacity to utilize nuclear power for power generation,” he said. “Who knows, nuclear power may be the only source of energy in the future, and we must think of the future.” Nations around the world have difficulty regulating radioactive devices that contain material that could be used in a radiological weapon, said William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. However, the problem is “even more acute in those countries which lack well-developed nuclear regulatory bodies and material control and accounting practices,” he said. Nigeria uses nuclear materials for research and medical purposes, including in a reactor that undergoes regular International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. The United States in 2005 agreed to fund tighter security measures at Nigerian radioactive material storage sites. The oil industry, now the main user of radioactive materials in Nigeria, has at times lost track of devices containing radioactive materials it uses to detect cracks in pipelines or measure oil wells. In December 2002, two X-ray devices disappeared from a truck in the Niger Delta, news agencies reported. The missing devices contained the radioactive substance americium-beryllium, but Nigerian officials did not issue a warning about the devices until IAEA officials arrived in the country two months later to investigate their disappearance. An oil worker said the devices were later found in a scrap yard in Europe and suggested that thieves stole them to sell as scrap. The oil worker declined to give details of a second unresolved case of missing radioactive materials he believed had not been recovered. A private security contractor anonymously reported that oil workers in 2004 abandoned radioactive materials on an oil rig attacked by gunmen. Several attacks on Nigerian oil industry sites take place each week, and more than 250 foreigners have been kidnapped in the last two years. In early 2007, Niger’s government rebuked four oil and oil service companies for failing to obtain permits before moving radioactive materials. Officials did not state what the materials in question were, but the oil industry commonly employs devices that contain small quantities of americium and cesium (Katherine Houreald, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, July 26).
A 12-month U.S. effort to blacklist Iranian companies allegedly involved in funding terrorism and supporting the nation’s nuclear program has proven successful, U.S. Undersecretary of Treasury Stuart Levey told Agence France-Presse in a phone interview yesterday (see GSN, July 26). “We believe that there is a real potential that these sanctions will have the effect of changing the government of Iran's mind about the defiant policy it is currently pursuing,” said Levey, who head’s the department’s terrorism and financial intelligence office. He said Treasury officials have been warning private companies and financial institutions of the dangers of doing business with Iran. As U.S. President George W. Bush has accused Tehran of attempting to build a nuclear weapon, Treasury has blacklisted more than a dozen Iranian companies with ties to Iran’s nuclear, energy and industrial sectors in a stepped-up financial offensive that began about a year ago. U.S. sanctions have also focused on Iranian financial institutions. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful and that U.S. sanctions would fail to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions (Justin Cole, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 26). Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has filed “numerous” formal complaints with Beijing about burgeoning shipments of sensitive military equipment to Iran by several Chinese companies, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The shipments are part of a trade surge between Iran and China in which Chinese exports to Iran have grown by 70 percent, to $3.2 billion, in the first half of this year. The disputed shipments include dual-use goods such as specialty metals that could aid Tehran’s missile and nuclear programs, the Journal reported. Some of the shipments have been directed to Iran’s main ballistic missile manufacturer. U.S. officials have argued that two rounds of U.N. sanctions against Iran should bar such trade. China has not responded to the U.S. assertion, and in the past officials in Beijing have accused the United States of sanctioning Chinese companies based on poor evidence (Neil King, Wall Street Journal, July 27). Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki reaffirmed in an interview published yesterday that U.S. and international sanctions would not persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program and could lead to “confrontation” with the West. “In today's world, the instrument of sanctions is no longer effective,” he said (Reuters/Washington Post, July 26).
A working group meeting on energy assistance for North Korea has been tentatively set for Aug. 7 to 8, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 26). The nations participating in the six-party talks agreed to conduct working groups on several issues related to the February agreement intended to result in North Korean denuclearization. Pyongyang would receive a total of 1 million tons of fuel oil or related assistance upon completely closing down its nuclear program. The meeting on energy aid is expected to be held in Panmunjom, the border village where North and South Korea signed the armistice halting the Korean War. “One or two countries” have not yet said whether they would participate, a South Korean official told AP. The six-party nations include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and North and South Korea (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, July 27). A team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors stopped in Beijing today on their way to North Korea, AP reported. It is set to take over from the first team assigned to monitor the closing of the Yongbyon nuclear facility under the February deal. “I am leading the second verification mission to the D.P.R.K.,” said team leader Ryszard Zarucki. “We will travel tomorrow to Pyongyang and will continue activities as stated in the [agency] board documents.” The team is scheduled to arrive in North Korea tomorrow and remain there for roughly two weeks. Its job would include placing seals on closed sections of the Yongbyon site and oversee deployment of surveillance cameras (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, July 27). Meanwhile, observers and officials are considering the future of North Korean nuclear scientists who could be left at loose ends if the nation follows through in shuttering its weapons complex, Reuters reported today. “This becomes relevant at the dismantlement phase, not the current freeze phase which will take us through the end of 2007, early 2008, assuming the best,” said Peter Hayes of the Nautilus Institute. “Yes, there are proliferation risks from footloose experts, defectors or refugees from the D.P.R.K. Yes, there are people worrying about this in the U.S. and other governments.” Intelligence sources say up to 2,000 scientists and personnel have worked at Yongbyon. While they are not at the top of their profession, there are fears that disaffected nuclear staffers might become a proliferation threat akin to the network once operated by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, which supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. North Korea might also throw a wrench into the disarmament process if it does not receive assurances regarding the future of its scientists, Reuters reported. “These guys aren’t a proliferation risk per se unless North Korea collapses,” said former U.S. State Department disarmament expert Joel Wit. “But the real concern is that in the context of the agreement the North Koreans are going to turn to us and ask, ‘What do we do with these guys?’ Solving that is going to be an absolute requirement from the North Korean side.” One option is to connect the scientists with civilian commercial work, said Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That type of cooperation could also provide insight into the North Korean nuclear program and potential holes in disarmament oversight, he said. China and South Korea are both watching this issue closely, Reuters reported. “The South Koreans are so anxious in fact that they want to do this own their own,” Wolfsthal said (Chris Buckley, Reuters/Washington Post, July 27).
Activist groups and the German government yesterday criticized France’s agreement to build a nuclear reactor in Libya, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 26). The United States, however, gave a thumbs up to the deal and some proliferation experts said they saw no threat in atomic cooperation with Tripoli. The French firm Areva would build the plant, which is to desalinate sea water so that it could be used as drinking water. “Politically this is a problematic affair,” said German Foreign Affairs Minister Gernot Erler. “Above all the risk of proliferation increases with every country using nuclear energy.” The French antinuclear umbrella group Sortir du Nucleaire — Get Out of Nuclear — called the rationale for the reactor a “deception.” “Delivering civilian nuclear energy to Libya would amount to helping the country, sooner or later, to acquire nuclear weapons,” it said. Libya is “very amply self-sufficient in energy,” specifically oil and gas, according to the group. “If it wishes to diversify, it should logically give priority to solar energy: the country enjoys remarkable levels of sunshine all year long.” Other observers were less worried, AFP reported. “I expect … that the French government would pay full attention to making sure that any safeguard will be implemented in any sort of deal,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. Libya renounced its WMD programs in 2003, and subsequently shipped nuclear equipment and weapon-grade uranium out of the country. It has had “very good cooperation” with the International Atomic Energy Agency since that point, one diplomat said. One expert said the agreement should not be considered a proliferation threat, “given the fact that Libya is still cooperating with the IAEA (and) the manner (in which) it turned over and destroyed equipments.” “It is important for the rest of the world to see that when a country abandons its nuclear weapons programs and weapons of mass destruction, there are tangible benefits. This cooperation (with France) is a direct result,” said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 26).
| 
Back to top
