By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire
VIENNA — After agreeing not to pursue a formal resolution of condemnation, members of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board assailed Iran today for the nation’s purported reluctance to disclose more information about its nuclear activities (see GSN, March 4).
Particularly stinging was British Ambassador Simon Smith, who addressed the 35-nation board on behalf of France, Germany and the United Kingdom. His comments came two days after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution hiking economic sanctions against Iran for the nation’s refusal to accede to earlier demands to freeze key nuclear activities. There is “no doubt that Iran’s record in complying with these requirements remains abysmal,” Smith said today, the final day of this week’s board session. “As long as Iran’s choice remains one of noncooperation, we for our part will remain determined to demonstrate the costs and consequences of that choice.” Monday’s council action strengthened bans on certain Iranian individuals and called for additional economic hardships on a set of Iranian companies. The council demanded Iran freeze its uranium enrichment program, as well as other sensitive nuclear activities, within 90 days. Tehran has ignored two earlier resolutions that made the same demands. Here in Vienna, European powers opted not to introduce a resolution to the IAEA board, with Russia arguing that two declarations were unnecessary (see related GSN story, today). The board resolution would, in any case, have far fewer teeth than the council’s, which imposed actual sanctions. One draft version of a board document simply restated the issues that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said need further study and urged Iran to improve its cooperation with the agency. ElBaradei recently reported to the board that a number of questions about Iran’s programs remain unanswered, particularly regarding allegations that Tehran has pursued nuclear weaponization activities. “Although Iran has provided some additional detailed information about its current activities on an ad hoc basis, the IAEA will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity about the alleged studies,” said the draft resolution. Smith took up that point today, criticizing Iranian officials for what he said was their limited and begrudging cooperation with the IAEA effort to understand Iran’s past nuclear accomplishments and future ambitions. “Where, in the director general’s report or elsewhere, is there evidence that Iran has made any unprompted and proactive effort to address the questions? Where is the evidence that Iran has sought with any genuineness to add to the knowledge and understanding that the agency already has?” Smith asked. “Information has been provided by Iran on an ad hoc, incomplete and inconsistent basis.” “These dismissive responses are wholly unsatisfactory,” he added. Piling on in his remarks to the board today was U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte, who said there is “international mistrust in the nature of Iran’s nuclear activities and the intentions of its leadership.” Schulte focused on several specific allegations that Iran has conducted efforts to develop narrow, nuclear-weapon technologies. ElBaradei’s most recent board report noted that the agency is looking into documents that describe Iranian interest in building an explosive testing shaft, designing a nuclear-capable missile re-entry vehicle, and using shock-wave software that could have nuclear trigger implications. “I am not an engineer. But I suspect that technicians don’t need to shelter themselves 10 kilometers away to test conventional weapons … or automotive air bags,” he said regarding the alleged test site plans and one explanation Iran has offered. Late last year, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran does not have current plans to develop nuclear weapons, but Schulte warned that past efforts could give the nation a breakout capability. “This is an effort that Iran’s leaders could choose to restart at any moment — or hold in abeyance until their uranium enrichment capabilities are sufficiently advanced,” he said. Iran RepliesSpeaking after his Western adversaries, Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh replied with now-common and often curious comments. Iran has successfully eliminated many earlier suspicions about its nuclear activities, most notably by proving to the agency that traces of highly enriched uranium found in Iranian centrifuges were not produced by activity within the country. Rather, the agency concluded that the material had been on the equipment when it was delivered to Iran by the international smuggling network once led by former Pakistani nuclear chief Abdul Qadeer Khan (see related GSN story, today). Soltanieh, today and in earlier presentations over the past three years, has noted these accomplishments, but he has also made patently erroneous statements that would appear to undermine Iran’s credibility in the nuclear standoff. Speaking to the board today, for example, Soltanieh said, “the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency has officially declared that all outstanding issues regarding the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been resolved.” This assertion, however, simply contradicted ElBaradei’s comments earlier this week. The agency has “been able to clarify all but one of the remaining outstanding issues,” the IAEA chief said Monday in his remarks to open the board meeting. Similarly, Soltanieh twice this week described the August 2007 “work plan” — designed to guide the agency’s review of Iran’s past nuclear activities — as scheduled to last for 18 months. He then praised his nation for completing the plan’s requirements in only six months. The text of the work plan, however, makes clear that the plan should be completed in about six months, not 18. So the plan would appear to be on schedule if it were finished today, not 12 months ahead of schedule. Currently the plan is hung up on resolving questions regarding the suspected weaponization studies, charges that Soltanieh today called “a bunch of worthless allegations.” He criticized the United States, the supplier of the documents raising the key questions, for refusing to make more of the documents available for scrutiny. “Said country wants to keep control of the fabricated documents and manipulate and prolong the process,” Soltanieh said. He reminded the board of the now-infamous “Niger Documents” that U.S. officials once used to claim that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Those documents were later revealed to be poor-quality forgeries that were quickly exposed when examined by non-U.S. analysts (see GSN, Jan. 18, 2006). Soltanieh this week said that the latest charges against Iran are based on similarly “forged” information. One new tactic offered up by Soltanieh today was a threat that Iran would someday seek repayment for the troubles it has faced. “Be sure that the day would come when we request the compensations for all these damages inflicted on Iran and its peoples through these unsubstantiated allegations and unlawful actions elsewhere,” he said. A Balancing VoiceTaking the middle ground, South African Ambassador to the IAEA Abdul Minty urged Iran to cooperate with the agency. However, he criticized Western powers for pushing the Security Council resolution — even though South Africa backed it in New York. Minty said ElBaradei had highlighted many positive points in his recent report, in particular noting that Iran has successfully clarified many former areas of concern. “It was not clear to us why the Security Council should adopt a further punitive resolution against Iran at a time when it was cooperating with the IAEA and significant progress was being made in resolving the outstanding issues and completing the agreed work plan,” he told the board. He also expressed disappointment that the council acted before this week’s board meeting could consider ElBaradei’s latest report. “This creates the impression that the verification work of the agency and the important progress that has been made is virtually irrelevant to the co-sponsors of the resolution,” he said.
By Greg Webb
Global Security Newswire
VIENNA — India has essentially completed negotiations with the U.N. nuclear agency on a plan to allow international inspectors to monitor the nation’s civilian nuclear activities, a Western diplomat said here yesterday (see GSN, March 3). “The Indian safeguards agreement is done,” the diplomat said while noting that the text has not yet been signed. “No more talks in Vienna” would be needed, added the diplomat, who is familiar with activities at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquartered here. Formally completing the inspections agreement would satisfy a key precondition of implementing a U.S.-Indian nuclear trade deal that would enable New Delhi to purchase U.S. nuclear materials and technology even though it does not belong to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and does not permit international monitoring of its entire nuclear program. Procedurally, three steps were needed to enact the trade deal: exempting India from U.S. nuclear nonproliferation laws, modifying international nuclear trade guidelines, and completing an agreement giving IAEA inspectors access to India’s nuclear power facilities. The first step was accomplished in late 2006, the second remains pending, and third has been virtually completed. Opponents to the deal in New Delhi, however, have successfully scuttled it for the time being, with lawmakers from the left and the right complaining that the agreement would give the United States excessive influence over Indian nuclear policies. Particularly troubling to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is opposition from key supporters of his ruling coalition. Four communist parties have threatened to drop their support, thus forcing early elections, if Singh seeks to implement the trade deal. The parties did, however, reportedly allow Singh to negotiate the safeguards agreement with the nuclear agency as long he promised not to sign it without receiving their approval. Negotiations have now been completed, an agency official confirmed today, saying that if any small changes to the text were needed, they could be done “by picking up the telephone.” It was not known when or if the safeguards deal would actually be signed. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher today reaffirmed the Bush administration’s stand that the Indian government must soon approve the deal if it is to be enacted in Washington, Reuters reported. “Time is very tight. But I think we can make this happen,” Boucher said, identifying July as the deadline for Congress to receive the agreement. That comes shortly before its summer recess and then the November presidential election. Singh told Indian lawmakers that his government is still pushing the deal forward. “We … continue to seek the broadest possible consensus within the country,” he said. “The cooperation is good for us, for our energy security and for the world.” Singh’s comments suggested he would ignore opposition in order to move the deal through India’s parliament, said nuclear analyst R.R. Subramanian, who supports the agreement. “The nuclear deal is the hobby horse of the prime minister,” Subramanian said. “His statement is a clear indication that the government is ready to bid goodbye to the leftists.”
A new report says the U.S. Homeland Security Department was not able to show in testing last year whether next-generation radiation sensors could reliably detect possible nuclear weapon and radiological “dirty bomb” ingredients at U.S. entry points, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 28). Tests conducted by the department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office in early 2007 did not conclusively determine whether the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitors could “detect and identify actual objects that might be smuggled” into the United States, according to sections of the report released by Congress. “Even after collecting all available test results, it was difficult to form conclusions about operational effectiveness,” the report says. Last year, congressional investigators criticized DNDO methods for testing the portal monitors, which the department wants to deploy at U.S. seaports and border crossings at a cost of up to $1.2 billion (see GSN, Sept. 19, 2007). In an earlier report, the auditors slammed the office’s tactics to promote the machines to lawmakers (see GSN, July 20, 2007). In response, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last year called for an independent review of the technology and subsequently suspended deployment of the machines, which he had called a “vital priority.” Lawmakers have said that the new machines cannot be deployed until Chertoff certifies that they are a significant improvement over current systems. The House Homeland Security Committee is expected to hear testimony today from DNDO Director Vayl Oxford and others about the report and past tests conducted by the office. “While I applaud the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office for its aggressive pursuit of new detection technologies, I still remain deeply concerned that the systems have not been properly tested and evaluated,” said Representative Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), head of the Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity and Science and Technology Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee. Meanwhile, the House Energy and Commerce Committee called on the department to have an independent organization take over testing of the detectors. “We should not spend a single penny to install these machines at our ports and borders until valid testing is done to demonstrate that these costly new machines work significantly better than the existing radiation detectors,” committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) said in a statement (Robert O’Harrow Jr., Washington Post, March 5).
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that his government would not discuss its nuclear program with any party but the International Atomic Energy Agency, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 4). “From now on our nuclear issue is with the agency only and we will not negotiate with anyone outside the agency about Iran's nuclear issue,” the Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Iran has previously conducted talks with European diplomats regarding its atomic activities. The announcement followed the enactment of new U.N. Security Council sanctions this week aimed at pressuring Tehran to stop nuclear efforts that international powers suspect could be aimed at nuclear weapons production (see related GSN story, today). “The new resolution issued by the Security Council on Iran's nuclear issue lacks legal credibility,” Ahmadinejad added. “This resolution does not have any importance to us” (Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 5). Iran yesterday called the resolution “worthless” and said it would continue its uranium enrichment program in defiance of council demands, the Associated Press reported. The uranium enrichment process can yield a nuclear weapon ingredient, but Tehran insists it is pursuing it solely to produce nuclear power plant fuel The Iranian comments suggest the Security Council took appropriate action by passing the sanctions, said Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “That shows that they don't like what has happened, which means that we've done the right thing, because they are in violation of two previous resolutions and we have to do something that indicates displeasure and causes more pressure on them,” he said (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Google News, March 5). Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin yesterday urged Iran to carefully consider a statement by the five permanent Security Council member nations and Germany offering political and economic incentives for halting its uranium enrichment program. “We hope (it) is being very carefully read in Tehran because it does indicate some very important motives … and intentions of the six in working with Iran,” Churkin said, adding that the Security Council’s 15 members had “rallied” around the statement. Russian nuclear fuel being delivered to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant ensures Tehran a reliable fuel supply for years, eliminating its need for an indigenous uranium enrichment capacity, Churkin said. “That new reality on the ground should provide another incentive, another opportunity for Iran to be more accommodating to the requirement of enrichment suspension,” he said (Edith Lederer, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, March 5). The resolution’s passage highlighted a divide between the world’s most powerful countries, which pushed hardest for the sanctions, and developing nations that more often sympathized with Iran, the Christian Science Monitor reported today. The nonpermanent Security Council members Indonesia, Libya and South Africa expressed skepticism of the calls for new sanctions and carefully considered Iran’s claim that major world powers were seeking to maintain a monopoly on valuable nuclear technologies. South African U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo urged the council to delay voting on the resolution until the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported on its investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities, and Indonesia abstained when the vote came. Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia’s U.N. envoy, said his country abstained because the resolution did not consider Iran’s cooperation with the international community, which he called a “mixed picture.” He added that Iran could further reduce cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in response to the new sanctions. The resolution also suggested that European powers have assumed leadership in the campaign for the sanctions against Iran, a mantle that had long been carried by the United States. Western nations partly wanted to play down the perception of a two-way rivalry between Tehran and Washington, said Ray Takeyh, an Iran analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They want to emphasize that it's not the U.S. versus Iran,” he said. U.S. bargaining power against Iran was also undermined last December with the release of an intelligence assessment that Tehran had suspended nuclear weapons development in 2003. France and Germany have become concerned that they could fall within the range of a ballistic missile being developed in Iran, particularly in light of documents shown by IAEA officials last week indicating that Tehran had worked on building a nuclear warhead in the past (Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, March 5).
China is planning another large funding increase for its military, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 4). Spending for 2008 is expected to rise by 17.6 percent to $58.8 billion, according to official figures released yesterday. The military saw a 17.8-percent budget increase last year. China’s announced defense budget figures are believed to be about half of what the nation actually spends each year on its military, according to experts from the United States and other nations. The budget of the U.S. Defense Department would still be four times as high as those numbers. The announcement from Beijing came one day after the release of an annual Pentagon report on China’s military that expressed the need for greater transparency regarding the buildup. Beijing has spent much of the last 20 years increasing its defense budget in order to acquire more sophisticated weaponry and to train its 2.3-million-person army. Those moves could allow China to contest the U.S. position as the dominant force in East Asia, foreign security experts say. It might also enable China to quickly invade and defeat Taiwan while blocking U.S. intervention, they say. Beijing considers the island to be part of its territory and has threatened to use military force against any move toward independence. Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for China’s legislature, said yesterday that the nation’s “limited armed forces are totally for the purpose of safeguarding independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. China will not pose a threat to any country” (David Lague, New York Times, March 5). China is believed each year to deploy another 100 missiles aimed at Taiwan, according to U.S. military analysts. The latest figure places the full deployment at between 990 and 1,070 missiles, the Taipei Times reported. Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has over the last year put the number at more than 1,300. Taiwan is also increasing its military spending, with $939 million going toward upgrades for Patriot Advanced Capability 2 air-defense systems (see GSN, Dec. 12, 2007). “We’ve made a number of notifications … about the weapons systems Taiwan will be acquiring and we think those will help address the issues of the balance in the Taiwan [Strait],” U.S. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary David Sedney said. “But that certainly won’t address it completely because China continues both its modernization and its deployment of forces based on Taiwan … and we continue to not just watch it carefully but to take all appropriate measures that we have to do to be prepared for any eventuality” (Charles Snyder, Taipei Times, March 5).
In the midst of a slowdown in the six-party process, a senior U.S. official said yesterday that “important progress” has been made in moving North Korea toward giving up its nuclear sector, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 4). “While we have made important progress … much work remains ahead on the road to verifiable denuclearization of the D.P.R.K.,” Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said during a meeting of the organization’s governing board in Vienna. “We are still waiting for the D.P.R.K. to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs, which was due on Dec. 31, 2007,” he said. “It is critical that the D.P.R.K. provide the declaration as soon as possible, and that the declaration be correct and complete and include all nuclear weapons, programs, materials and facilities.” “The D.P.R.K. must also address concerns related to uranium enrichment programs and activities,” Schulte added. North Korea agreed last year to give up its nuclear programs in exchange for energy assistance and diplomatic and security concessions from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Washington, though, said that Pyongyang has yet to provide a declaration accounting for the full scope of its nuclear work, including suspected assistance to other countries and uranium enrichment activities. North Korea, meanwhile, has complained about the flow of rewards from the other nations and has slowed the pace at which it is disabling three key nuclear facilities (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, March 4). The United States hopes to receive the nuclear declaration in “the not too distant future,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said yesterday. “We intend to keep working this,” he said. Regarding his reasoning for having hope during the standoff, Casey said “diplomats are always hopeful. We’re paid to be hopeful” (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, March 5). Pyongyang said today, though, that Washington had met “zero percent” of its obligations under the 2007 deal and is to blame for the current standoff in negotiations, AFP reported. North Korea believes it has not received enough fuel oil or related energy aid during the denuclearization process. It has also made the as-yet unmet demand to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. “Reality is like this. For what reason should we hurry up while the principle of action for action is not being kept?” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary (Agence France-Presse III/NASDAQ.com, March 5).
Former top Pakistani nuclear scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan was hospitalized today for treatment of what is believed to be an infection, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 11). Khan on Tuesday “complained of weakness and was provided immediate medical treatment at home,” the Pakistani army said in a statement. The 71-year-old had been healthy since being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006, according to the statement. “Medical checkup revealed low blood pressure and fever, probably due to some infection,” according to the statement. Khan was moved to a hospital early today for a more extensive medical examination. “Doctors who are treating him are hopeful that Dr. A.Q. Khan would return home fully recovered in a couple of days,” the statement said. Islamabad has kept Khan under house arrest since 2004 after he admitted to leading an operation that provided nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, March 5).
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