U.S.-India:  Countries Join Against Counterproliferation

The U.S.-India Defense Policy Group agreed this week to cooperate to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism and other security threats.  Defense officials for the United States and India issued a joint statement after meetings on Dec. 3 and 4 (see GSN, Dec. 4).  The two countries also discussed how missile defenses could “enhance strategic stability” and “discourage the proliferation of ballistic missiles with weapons of mass destruction.”

The U.S. State and Defense departments have approved several applications for export licenses to India and would notify Congress since the United States waived sanctions against India (see GSN, Oct. 17), the statement said.  “The U.S. also agreed to expeditious review of India’s acquisition priorities, including engine and systems for Light Combat Aircraft, radars, multi-mission maritime aircraft, components for jet trainer and high performance jet engines,” the statement said (U.S. State Department release, Dec. 5).

The two countries have also agreed to conduct joint military exercises and increase U.S. military sales to India (see GSN, Nov. 6), which were minor in recent years due to U.S. nuclear nonproliferation concerns (Celia Dugger, New York Times, Dec. 6).

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United States:  DOE Seeks New Site for Plutonium

The U.S. Energy Department is looking for an alternate site for storing plutonium from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News reported Tuesday.

Sending the plutonium as planned to the Energy Department’s Savannah River site in South Carolina is an important step in closing Rocky Flats by the target date of Dec. 15, 2006, according to the News.  South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges, however, will only allow the plutonium to be stored temporarily, the News reported.  Hodges has threatened to lie down in front of trucks heading to the DOE site if that condition is not met.

Discussions for an alternate site have been ongoing for the past three months, but no new site has yet been chosen, Energy Department officials said.  Some diluted plutonium could go to a burial site near Carlsbad, N.M., where other waste from the Rocky Flats plant is to be shipped (see GSN, Dec. 5), said spokesman Joe Davis.

Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) does not care where the plutonium is shipped to as long as Rocky Flats is closed on schedule, said Allard spokesman Sean Conway (Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News/Nuclear Control Institute, Dec. 4).

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Pakistan:  Italian Physicists Investigate Nuclear Security

Two Italian physicists from the Italian Arms Control Center are in Pakistan to report to the Italian government on the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, the Pakistani newspaper DAWN reported today.  Paolo Cotta-Ramusino and Maurizio Martellini have discussed several security issues with officials and think-tank experts throughout a five-day visit that ends tomorrow.

The physicists are investigating a variety of nuclear security issues, including the percentage of nuclear weapons that are assembled in Pakistan, the safety of the weapons (see GSN, Nov. 29) and how the conflict in Afghanistan has affected Pakistani nuclear policy.  They are also researching possible links between Pakistani nuclear scientists and the Taliban (see related GSN story, today).

The physicists also are investigating the risk of proliferation of Pakistan’s nuclear technology or materials to terrorists and rogue states and the effectiveness of Pakistan’s control on materials that could be used for chemical and biological weapons.

Pakistan is a very important country to world security, and its stability is especially crucial in light of the Afghan conflict and the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the physicists said.  “The situation has raised serious concerns about the possibility that terrorist groups have acquired weapons of mass destruction or may be striving to acquire such weapons,” they said (DAWN, Dec. 6).

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U.S.-Russia I: Both Nations Meet START Deadline

By Greg Webb

Global Security Newswire

The deadline to implement the nuclear reductions mandated by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty arrived today with both the United States and Russia announcing they had completed all the required cuts.

“The treaty’s final ceilings came into effect today and they have been met,” U.S. State Department Spokesman Bob Waters said this morning.

Russia has also completed its reductions, according to Igor Zaitsev, deputy chief of Russia’s National Center for the Reduction of Nuclear Threat, ITAR-Tass reported today (ITAR-Tass, Dec. 5).

START was signed in July 1991 by then-U.S. President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.  The 15-year treaty entered into force on Dec. 5, 1994 and allowed the parties, now including the four former Soviet republics with nuclear weapons on their territory at the time of the Soviet Union’s demise—Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus—seven years to implement the treaty’s reductions.  Treaty verification provisions are to continue for the life of treaty, which can be renewed in five-year increments.

Arms control proponents praised the development, but cautioned about the future of arms control.  “This is a treaty that was put together by [U.S. President] George W. Bush’s father and is his legacy.  George W. Bush appears not to want to pursue the tradition of his father to pursue verifiable, codified arms control agreements,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.

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U.S.-Russia II:
Officials Agree on Nuclear Material Security

The United States and Russia last week agreed to improve security measures for highly enriched uranium and plutonium.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev agreed on the need to improve the physical protection, control and accounting of nuclear materials and combating illegal trafficking, according to a joint statement.

Spencer and Rumyantsev noted the importance of cooperating with other countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency on nuclear material protection measures (see GSN, Nov. 5).  The two requested a review of present security measures and levels of cooperation, the statement said.

“I am very pleased with the reaction of my Russian counterpart to these U.S. proposals,” Abraham said. “I believe we have agreed on significant steps to expand and accelerate international efforts to safeguard nuclear material” (U.S. State Department release, Dec. 4).

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North Korea:
KEDO Unsure of Timeframe for Reactors’ Completion

Charles Kartman, executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, said today he could not predict when KEDO would complete construction on two light-water reactors in North Korea (see GSN, Nov. 9).  The project faces numerous obstacles, including North Korea’s refusal to give the International Atomic Energy Agency complete access to inspect its nuclear program (see GSN, Dec. 3).

Negotiations over liability for subcontractors working on the project and North Korea’s outdated power grid pose other obstacles to completing the reactors.  Despite the difficulties, “there is a great basis for working together to solve future problems,” Kartman said yesterday after meeting with South Korean Unification Minister Sun Yong Hong and other officials.  The meeting in South Korea followed Kartman’s meeting with North Korean officials earlier this week (see GSN, Dec. 4).

KEDO, a consortium of several countries led by the United States, was created after the 1994 Agreed Framework between North Korea and the United States to construct two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.  In exchange for the reactors, North Korea agreed to halt and dismantle its nuclear program, which the United States suspected was used to produce material for nuclear weapons (Sang-Hun Choe, Associated Press, Dec. 5).

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Iran:  U.S. Wants to Curb Russian Nuclear Aid

U.S. officials have said the United States plans to renew efforts to persuade Russia to decrease its nuclear and missile cooperation with Iran (see GSN, Dec. 3), Reuters reported Monday.  If Russia refuses to limit its cooperation with Iran, the United States would impose sanctions under U.S. law, a senior U.S. official said, noting that the United States imposed sanctions on China in September for allegedly providing missile technology to Pakistan (see GSN, Dec. 3).

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton plans to visit Moscow this week for high-level talks.  U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to visit Russia on Dec. 9.  The talks are expected to focus on U.S. intentions to develop a missile defense system and U.S. and Russian plans to reduce nuclear stockpiles (see GSN, Nov. 14).  Russian-Iranian cooperation is also expected to be a key issue along with Russian nuclear assistance to India. One senior U.S. official said the United States would ask Russia to help prevent other sources, such as China and North Korea, from sharing nuclear technology with Iran.

Russia is assisting the construction of a nuclear power reactor at Bushehr, Iran.  The facility would be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, but critics have charged that the cooperation aids Iran’s nuclear weapons program (Reuters/Yahoo.com, Dec. 3).

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Libya:  Uranium Smuggling Denied

Libya Monday refuted a report by Radio France Internationale that uranium had been smuggled through the country.  The Libyan Secretariat of the General Peoples Committee for African Unity released a statement, carried by Libya’s official Jamahiriya News Agency, refuting the reports and claiming there was no evidence to link Libya with nuclear smuggling.

“The Great Jamahiriya has no relation whatsoever with such deals and was never a transit point for such affairs.  Its interests as a developing nation do not include such dealings,” the statement said, adding that Libya advocates total disarmament and “dismantling of all weapons of mass destruction” (Jamahiriya News Agency, Dec. 3).

Radio France Internationale reported last week that an Italian man said that Beyeye Djema, a customs official from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, contacted him in January seeking assistance to sell more than 10 kilograms of uranium 235 and 238.  Djema told the Italian man that he had taken the uranium, which originated in the United States, from a nuclear research center near Kinshasa and wanted to sell it.  Djema said he had a Sudanese contact in Libya who was interested in the material.  To convey the value of the material, Djema told the Italian that former D.R.C. President Laurent-Desire Kabila once received helicopters, tanks and small arms from Libya in exchange for one kilogram of uranium, RFI reported.

According to the Italian man, his meeting with Djema was arranged by a former ambassador to Libya from Zaire, now the D.R.C. He said he eventually decided not to facilitate the uranium sale due to concerns about the potential consequences of a rogue state buying the material.  He guessed the likely destination of the uranium was Iraq, perhaps North Korea, he said.  The Italian man revealed the story to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica last week and had documentation and photos of the uranium, according to RFI (Elio Comarin, Radio France Internationale/GSN translation, Nov. 28).

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Ukraine:  U.S. Team Monitors Missile Silo Deactivation

A delegation of U.S. experts has arrived in Ukraine to inspect a SS-24 missile silo and command post and ensure that the facilities no longer serve a military purpose, said Ukrainian Defense Ministry official Col. Volodymyr Shapovalov, according to an ITAR-Tass report on Monday.  The silo has been converted into a museum.

Remaining Ukrainian ICBMs were moved to a plant in Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region of central Ukraine for scrapping in October and November.  The last Ukrainian SS-24 missile silo (see GSN, Oct. 23) was dismantled on Oct. 30 (ITAR-Tass, Dec. 3 in FBIS-SOV, Dec. 4).

Russia dismantled the last Ukrainian nuclear warhead in October 2001 (see GSN, Nov. 14).

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United States:
Rocky Flats Plutonium Residue Prepared for Shipment

Workers have prepared more than 690 pounds of plutonium residue at the Rocky Flats former nuclear weapons plant in Colorado for shipment to New Mexico, where authorities are to bury the plutonium in salt caverns, Rocky Flats spokesman Bill Badger said yesterday.  The residue was a byproduct of plutonium recovery operations at the plant.

Badger said workers also prepared for shipment 7,000 pounds of waste contaminated by plutonium, although he did not provide information on when that waste would be shipped.

Located northwest of Denver, Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons before closing in 1989 (Associated Press, Dec. 4).

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