International Response:  Officials to Move Uzbek Uranium to Secure Site

Uzbek, Russian and U.S. officials are planning a joint security operation to remove a large stockpile of highly enriched uranium from an Uzbek reactor site, the London Guardian reported today (see GSN, Sept. 3).

About 70 kilograms of highly enriched uranium are stored at the Institute of Nuclear Physics at Ulugbek, near the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.  The site is too close to Afghanistan and might have weak security, according to the Guardian.

“(The security at) most of these old reactors is pretty scary,” said Matthew Bunn, senior research associate at the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University.

Officials plan to ship the uranium stockpile and spent fuel from the reactor to a secure Russian site.  The United States is expected to pay up to $4 million to cover the costs of the plan.

Meanwhile, three metric tons of weapon-grade nuclear materials were moved a few months ago from the Aktau nuclear reactor in western Kazakhstan to a more secure site on the eastern Kazakh-Russian border, the Guardian reported.  Local companies associated with the reactor moved the materials and a Washington foundation, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, funded the security costs of the operation (Nick Paton, London Guardian, Sept. 6).

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group, Inc.]

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United States:  Energy Department to Accelerate Plutonium Shipments

The U.S. Energy Department plans to accelerate shipments of plutonium from the Rocky Flats former nuclear weapons plant to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Inside Energy reported Aug. 26 (see GSN, Aug. 7).

The department wants to squeeze the timetable by several months to maintain a pledge to Colorado that all nuclear materials from the Rocky Flats site would be removed by Dec. 31, 2003, according to Inside Energy.  Energy plans to meet that pledge “regardless of any short-term impacts from delays on special nuclear materials,” Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) in an Aug. 12 letter.

Energy has estimated that it would cost an additional $4.5 million for each month that the closure of the secure area of the Rocky Flats site is delayed, Abraham said.  Allard and Senator Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) attached an amendment to the fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill providing $18 million to ensure that any delay costs would not come from funds allocated for the cleanup of the Rocky Flats site (Shawn Terry, Inside Energy, Aug. 26).

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Libya:  Tripoli “Working Hard” Toward Nuclear Weapons, Sharon Says

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Libya is likely to be the first Arab state to develop nuclear weapons, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today (see GSN, June 27).

“Libya is working hard on developing an atom bomb and is apparently the Arab country furthest along in this,” Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv.  “For a long time we suspected they were working on this, but a few months ago, we were given final confirmation of this.  They are progressing all the time.”

Several countries including Iraq and Pakistan might be providing assistance to Libya’s nuclear weapons program, Sharon said.

“Iraqi experts are running the show in Libya,” he said on Israeli television.  “There might be Saudi money involved and there is definitely an involvement of North Korea” (Ross Dunn, Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 6).

Libya yesterday denied that it is working to develop any types of weapons of mass destruction and called on Israel to dismantle its own suspected arsenal of nuclear weapons (see GSN, Aug. 19).

“Libya does not own weapons of mass destruction and it does not want these weapons and is seeking to remove weapons of mass destruction from the whole area,” said Libyan Minister for African Unity Ali al-Triki.  “If Sharon is sincere about (the removal of weapons of) mass destruction, let him agree to disarm his nuclear arsenal first, then he can talk about others.”

Libya does not have the money needed to develop weapons of mass destruction, Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassuna Shaush said.  Sharon has “presented Washington with false information to stir up bad feeling between Arabs and the United States,” Shaush said (Beirut Daily Star, Sept. 6).

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Pakistan:  British Company Ships Bomb-Making Equipment

Smugglers have illegally shipped materials for making uranium refinement equipment from the United Kingdom to a Pakistani defense firm, the London Sunday Times reported Aug. 25.

MI5 intelligence officials had visited the British company that sold the material and warned that Pakistan might be requesting materials banned under export controls, according to the Times.  Later, at least one 47-ton shipment of high-strength aluminum was shipped from the company, which is based in Blackburn in northwest England, through Felixstowe, a port on the east coast, the Times reported.  Nuclear weapon manufacturer Khan Research Laboratories received the materials in Pakistan, according to Customs and Excise officers.  Sources believe that they reached a uranium enrichment plant near Islamabad.

The aluminum is used in centrifuges that convert low-grade uranium ore to high-grade fissile material, according to the Times.  “This is not the kind of aluminum you use for soft drinks cans; it has a very limited number of applications,” one source said.

MI5 has increased surveillance of Pakistani activities and two people face prosecution for violating export controls, the Times reported (Nicholas Rufford, London Sunday Times, Aug. 25).

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Iran:  Turbine Installation Begins at Bushehr

Russian specialists have begun final stages of construction for the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry said Monday (see GSN, Aug. 22).

Viktor Kozlov, director general of the Russian Atomstroyexport company, said Russian workers have begun assembling the reactor and turbine at the plant, according to the Russian newspaper Izvestia.  As the final stages of construction at the plant proceed, “the number of Russian specialists will rise and will reach 2,000 people by year-end,” Kozlov said (Alexander Shumilin, Izvestia/RusDataDialine, Sept. 3).

For further information, see:

Atomstroyexport

Russian Atomic Energy Ministry (Minatom)

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International Response:  Dhanapala Predicts Central Asian Treaty by 2003

A draft treaty to create a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central Asia could be ready by the end of the year, U.N. Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala said last week (see GSN, Aug. 15).

“We in the United Nations think that the present historical moment is an opportune one to conclude the treaty in order to signal the stability, the unity and prospects for the future in this Central Asian region,” Dhanapala said Saturday in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent (Associated Press, London Guardian, Aug. 24).

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International Response:  United States Targets 24 Sites to Move Fissile Material

The United States plans to remove weapon-grade nuclear materials from two dozen sites around the world in operations similar to the removal last week of materials from a site in Yugoslavia, officials said last week (see GSN, Aug. 23).

U.S. State Department officials said last week’s operation, in which U.S. and Russian experts cooperated to remove more than 100 pounds of nuclear materials from the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Belgrade, was an unprecedented occurrence of international cooperation to prevent nuclear proliferation.  The operation will set the standard for future efforts, State officials said.

There are about 350 sites in 58 countries that possess highly enriched uranium, nonproliferation experts have said.  Of those sites, about two dozen have enough materials to arm a weapon.  The United States has targeted those sites, a senior State official said.

“We want to get at all of them,” the official said.  “And some of them are going to be a lot more pernicious than others.”

Officials declined to say where the sites are located, citing security reasons.  Many of the sites are located in Russia and other former Soviet republics, specialists have said.  Others are located in the Middle East and other regions of the world.  The 24 targeted sites have been given top priority because of their age and weak security, a State spokeswoman said (Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe, Aug. 24).

Extraction Jeopardizes Research Project

Meanwhile, the extraction of nuclear materials from the Vinca Institute has damaged an international research project designed to help Yugoslavia develop a civilian nuclear power program and reduce dependence on coal, Science magazine reported this week. 

Institute researchers had planned to use 10 kilograms of the highly enriched uranium in an experiment designed to simulate conditions within a light-water nuclear reactor.  While Yugoslavia does not yet have nuclear power, scientists have been exploring the option because of uncertainties over the state of Kosovo and its coal reserves, said Nebojsa Neskovic, a member of the group of institute scientists that had planned to conduct the experiment (Richard Stone, Science, Aug. 30).

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Russia:  Atomic Ministry Engages in Shady Transactions, Critics Say

Critics have charged that Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry, also known as Minatom, has preserved its Soviet-era clandestine culture to cover up mismanagement and to engage in business transactions that could jeopardize Russian strategic interests, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.

The ministry employs more than 600,000 people and has an annual $1 billion budget — equal to 1.5 percent of Russia’s entire budget, according to the Chronicle.  For all of its size, however, the ministry continues to act with the same level of secrecy as it did during the Cold War, keeping many actions hidden from the Russian Parliament and President Vladimir Putin, the Chronicle reported.

One area of contention is the ministry’s involvement in the Russian effort to build a nuclear power plant in Iran (see GSN, July 25).  The agency sees the project, estimated to cost $840 million, more as a business venture and disregards its potential ability to aid Iran’s nuclear weapons program, according to a Russian scientist who is a frequent visitor to the Bushehr site.

“Yes, Iran will get their weapons-grade plutonium and build a bomb.  Everybody knows that,” the scientist said.  “So what?  We are making money today.”

In 1995, Alexi Yablokov, a senior adviser to then-President Boris Yeltsin, discovered that the ministry had set up a secret deal to provide Iran with a breeder reactor and other equipment to help produce weapon-grade plutonium, according to the Chronicle.  When Yablokov told Yeltsin about the deal, officials publicly called it off.  Yablokov and others have said, however, that the ministry continues to make such secret arrangements.

The Russian scientist who has visited the Bushehr project also said that the ministry has stolen large sums of money thorough money-laundering schemes, covert transfers and illegal transactions.  The scientist refused to provide more details, saying, “Why would I do that?  I don’t want to lose my cut of the pie.”

In January, Russia’s Accounting Chamber issued a report that said $270 million in U.S. and European aid to clean up and secure Russian radioactive waste sites has disappeared.  The ministry was responsible for the aid, and the report alleged that the ministry had used the funds for obscure research projects without providing records.  A spokesman said last week that the ministry needs up to 45 days to answer any questions regarding the aid.

The ministry’s secretive nature has no place in the open form of government that Russia is trying to develop, some critics have said.  In July, a group of legislators presented Putin with a plan for massive changes in the agency’s structure, including placing it under the control of three other government bodies and removing secrecy around its civilian programs, the Chronicle reported.  During a recent meeting with parliamentary leaders, Putin said he is “worried” about some of the ministry’s activities, legislator Sergei Mitrokhin said.

Some defenders have said, however, that the ministry’s clandestine nature has probably helped prevent unchecked proliferation of Russian nuclear weapons following the collapse of the Soviet Union (see GSN, Aug. 23).

“Had it not been for Minatom, [Russian] nuclear scientists would have been selling nuclear bombs all over the place in the early 1990s,” said Alexander Pikayev, an arms control expert at the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Anna Badkhen, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 1).

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U.S. Testing:  Subcritical Testing Continues With 18^th Experiment

U.S. scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory last week successfully conducted the subcritical test ‘Mario’ at the Nevada Test Site (see GSN, Aug. 16).  A small amount of plutonium was detonated in an underground chamber Thursday at the test site, which did not cause a nuclear chain reaction, said National Nuclear Security Administration officials.  The test was the 18^th U.S. subcritical experiment (Las Vegas Review-Journal, Aug. 30).

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China:  ICBM Launched in Test Last Week

China test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile Wednesday, ITAR-Tass reported.  In a combat training exercise, military officials launched the missile more than 3,000 kilometers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.  Russian monitors followed the missile to a landing point in the Taklamakan Desert, according to ITAR-Tass (ITAR-Tass, Aug. 28 in FBIS-SOV, Aug. 28).

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