North Korea:  Pyongyang Might Declare Nuclear Capabilities by Sept. 9

If the United States does not move forward with negotiations by Sept. 9, North Korea will declare itself a nuclear weapons state, the Singapore Straits Times reported (see GSN, July 22).

“North Korea will move on to possess nuclear weapons and declare itself a nuclear state if the U.S. fails to respond to its proposals before Sept. 9,” the 55th anniversary of the country’s creation, said a diplomatic source in Tokyo.

China is currently attempting to revive talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

“If the U.S. refuses to strike a deal in one way or another, North Korea could go nuclear,” said another diplomatic official in Tokyo.  “This is what China worries about the most, and China as a mediator will lose face,” the official added.

An official linked to North Korea, however, dismissed the Sept. 9 deadline.

“Our country, for its part, has vowed to have a deterrent force unless the U.S. changes its attitude … our country will go ahead with its schedule, irrespective of Sept. 9,” the official said (Singapore Straits Times, July 24).

North Korea claimed that it is doing its best to avoid a conflict.

“The D.P.R.K. has made unremitting efforts to prevent the outbreak of war and safeguard peace on the Korean Peninsula,” said Yang Hyong Sop, a senior North Korean lawmaker.  “But the United States has turned down the D.P.R.K. proposal for signing a nonaggression treaty,” he added (News24.com, July 24).

The United States also played down the Sept. 9 cutoff.

“I’ve just seen press reports on that.  It’s purely speculative at this point,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring, July 24).

U.S. officials are also expecting that another round of talks with China and North Korea would make progress in the standoff.

James Kelly, assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific, “will read the same talking points he read in Beijing in April; the North Koreans will do the same and that will be it,” said a senior U.S. official (Nicholas Kralev, Singapore Straits Times, July 24).

Japan, meanwhile, might resume normalization talks with North Korea if Pyongyang accepts multilateral talks to defuse the nuclear crisis, Yonhap News Agency reported (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring II, July 24).

No Decision on Reactors

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jae-sup said today that no decision had been made on continuing the construction of two nuclear reactors in North Korea.  The construction has been delayed by the nuclear standoff (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring III, July 24).

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U.S.-Russia:  No Verification Measures Planned For Moscow Treaty

The Bush administration plans to rely on START and the Cooperative Threat Reduction program to verify Russian compliance with the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty, Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter said this week (see GSN, June 5).

The Bush administration sees the treaty as a complete document, and therefore no additional verification measures are needed, said DeSutter, head of the State Department’s Verification and Compliance Bureau. 

The bureau plans to examine what measures START and the CTR program will provide over the next two years, but “we are basically satisfied,” said Karin Look, DeSutter’s deputy who was involved in the treaty negotiations.  If the bureau had been concerned about a lack of verification measures, “we would have pressed in the context of the negotiations and the ratification hearings to have something more in the treaty,” Look said (Thomas Duffy, Inside the Pentagon, July 24).

At the time the treaty was signed in May 2002, Bush administration officials indicated that the United States and Russia would negotiate follow-on measures to the treaty (see GSN, May 24, 2002).

“The verification stuff, all of that is going to go into the implementation agreement.  These are essentially the details, the nitty-gritty and it’s being worked on, but it’s not done.  It may take a little while,” National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton said when the treaty was signed (Greg Webb, GSN, July 24).

The treaty calls for the creation of a Bilateral Implementation Commission, which may meet for the first time by the end of summer, according to Inside the Pentagon.  Currently, the commission is not expected to do more than keep Washington and Moscow informed about the pace of each other’s disarmament, DeSutter said.

“At the end of the day the MT [Moscow Treaty] has two obligations, one is to have the BIC meet and the other is to have both sides down to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads by 2012,” Look said.

Look also said, however, that other U.S. agencies, as well as Russia itself, may still press for additional verification measures for the treaty.

“Now will the Russians agree with us?  I don’t know,” Look said.  “Will there be other parts of the U.S. government that thinks there is something needed?  I don’t know,” she said (Duffy, Inside the Pentagon).

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Iran:  Tehran Dismisses European Union Threats

Iranian officials have dismissed European threats of trade penalties if Tehran refuses to allow intrusive inspections of its nuclear activities, the Associated Press reported this week (see GSN, July 22).

“Imposing preconditions or using threatening language is totally unacceptable,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tuesday (Associated Press/Newsday, July 22).

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami cancelled a visit to Belgium, possibly in response to the demands from the European Union (Agence France-Presse, July 24).

Iran Holds Al-Qaeda Leaders

Iran said yesterday that it is has senior al-Qaeda leaders in custody, the Washington Times reported.

“The statements would appear to confirm what we and others believe to be a significant al-Qaeda presence in Iran, to include members of its senior leadership,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday.

U.S. officials demanded that Iran transfer the prisoners to U.S. custody (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, July 24).

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Russia:  Moscow Destroys SS-18 ICBM Silo

Russia has destroyed an SS-18 ICBM silo at the Kartaly missile base in the Chelyabinsk region, ITAR-Tass reported Tuesday (see GSN, May 29). 

Six of the missiles were removed from the silo and taken away for destruction as called for under START, according to ITAR-Tass.  All six of the base’s missile silos are scheduled to be destroyed by the end of the year (ITAR-Tass, July 22 in FBIS-SOV, July 22).

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Correction

In a story yesterday on a legal dispute threatening two U.S.-Russian nonproliferation agreements, Global Security Newswire mischaracterized the views of Kenneth Luongo, executive director of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.  In that story, some critics charged the Bush administration with using a dispute over liability protections in the U.S.-Russian agreements as an excuse to end the cooperative programs.  That view should not have been ascribed to Luongo.

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U.S.-Russia:  Legal Issues Threaten Nonproliferation Programs

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A U.S.-Russian legal dispute is threatening to end two nonproliferation agreements intended to help convert Russian nuclear weapons materials and facilities into peaceful uses.  U.S. officials say the dispute centers around protecting U.S. personnel working in Russia, but critics say the Bush administration policy could end these and other cooperative programs.

One agreement is set to expire tomorrow, and the other will probably run out in September unless Moscow grants sweeping liability protections to U.S. workers and companies operating in Russia.

The Energy Department announced yesterday that it will not renew the 1998 Nuclear Cities Initiative agreement unless Russia accepts changes to the agreement, which is due to expire Sept. 22.  Under the program, the United States has supported scaling back activities in Russia’s nuclear weapon research and production sites and converting some remaining facilities to peaceful purposes.  According to the Energy Department’s Web site, the initiative “is the only U.S. government program whose primary aim is to help downsize the Russian nuclear weapons complex.”

Yesterday’s announcement, however, said that U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has informed his Russian counterpart, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev, that the NCI agreement will not be renewed “until the Russian government approves legal provisions intended to protect American workers and companies working on projects in Russia.”

Abraham expressed hope that Russia will accept new liability language in time for the agreement to be renewed in September, but he said that if the agreement lapses, the two countries should nevertheless be able to continue existing projects.  In such a case, Abraham said, “We look forward to reinstating the NCI agreement once broader issues of liability protection have been settled.”

The announcement came only one day after U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Bryan Wilkes said the NCI program “is not being canceled; it is not being stopped.”

“We fully support the program. … The secretary is not canceling the program,” Wilkes said Monday.

Plutonium Science and Technology Agreement Runs Out Tomorrow

The Energy Department’s announcement yesterday may signal not only that the NCI program is in jeopardy, but also that other threat reduction efforts are threatened, as the Bush administration makes a priority of obtaining broad liability protections in all such agreements, according to congressional and nongovernmental organization observers.

Immediately threatened is another 1998 U.S.-Russian initiative, known as the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement, that is set to expire tomorrow.  The agreement provides for U.S.-Russian scientific and technical collaboration related to the withdrawal of plutonium from nuclear military programs.

Aspects of the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement are also covered by the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition agreement, and activities carried out under the auspices of the 1998 agreement could conceivably continue under the 2000 text, according to Leonard Spector, who directs the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

A planned liability protocol to the 2000 agreement has yet to be negotiated, while the language of the older plutonium agreement contains liability language similar to that of the NCI agreement — language that the Bush administration has consistently sought to replace with provisions such as those in the 1992 Cooperative Threat Reduction “umbrella agreement,” Spector said.

Among other differences, the 1998 texts would exempt Russia from liability in cases of “premeditated” actions causing damage or injury, while the 1992 language contains no such references, leaving it entirely up to Russia to deal with all liability issues arising under activities governed by the agreement.

House Members Write Bush

Writing ahead of the Energy Department’s announcement on the NCI agreement, six Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday to express “deep concern that the United States is contemplating the possible nonrenewal of two key U.S.-Russian nonproliferation agreements that provide the legal basis for important cooperative threat reduction efforts with Russia.”

Referring to the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement, the representatives — Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), John Spratt (D-S.C.), Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chet Edwards (D-Texas) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) — said they “understand that the administration may be prepared to allow” the agreement to lapse tomorrow.

“Beyond the national security and nonproliferation concerns of allowing the plutonium disposition program in Russia to stall or terminate,” the six lawmakers added, “there might also be significant negative domestic impacts on the activities associated with the plutonium disposition activities in the U.S.  The U.S. plutonium disposition effort is a multibillion-dollar program that is designed to operate in tandem with the Russian plutonium disposal activities, and support for the effort could falter if the Russian program stalls.”

Duma Endorsement Sought for Broad Liability Provisions

Spector said the Bush administration is consistently championing what it sees as the “tried-and-true, clean approach of the CTR agreement.”

“Whether or not that is the good approach is not the issue any longer.  The government has decided that that is the approach that they want,” he said.

According to Spector, the U.S. Defense Department views the liability language in the 1992 text as “perfection.”  The Russian Duma, however, has never ratified the 1992 agreement or a later extension of the agreement, and it has been applied only provisionally.  Meanwhile, some agreements signed in recent years — including bilateral arrangements between Germany and Russia and the 12-country Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program for Russia (see GSN, May 22) — do not match the 1992 umbrella agreement’s broad liability provisions.

In light of these developments, the desire to see the Duma ratify the liability provisions of the 1992 text is the key to U.S. insistence on similar language in the 1998 texts, according to Spector, who cited hopes the Russian legislature could ratify the umbrella agreement soon despite the fact that it is unlikely to sit for more than two months over the rest of this year.

“The Americans think that once the Duma acts” on the 1992 agreement, Spector said, “the Russian objections will die off.”  Even critics of the Bush administration’s approach, he said, agree that Duma action on the older text would “kind of cut the Gordian knot,” allowing the United States to hold up the 1992 agreement as a model of what the Duma is willing to ratify in the hope that such language can become the standard for agreements such as the plutonium disposition protocol.

Spector and the Fridtjof Nansen Institute’s Douglas Brubaker wrote an article in the Monterey Institute’s Nonproliferation Review supporting reform of liability provisions in nuclear nonproliferation assistance agreements with Russia.  Spector, a former assistant deputy administrator in the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, said yesterday that he opposes terminating the NCI program but supports the principle of liability reform in the interest of facilitating future nonproliferation assistance to Russia.

“Whatever the next agreement is going to be, this is a humongously difficult headache every single agreement.  And if you could get one of them locked in and endorsed, it would really streamline all future work,” Spector said.

Spector and Brubaker argued in their article that none of the existing liability language models for cooperative threat reduction agreements sufficiently addresses the question of victim compensation.  While Russia may be fully liable under umbrella agreement-style provisions, they said, Moscow is unlikely to be in a position to actually pay out compensation.

The two researchers advocated two approaches to resolving the compensation problem.  In the first approach, Russia would be liable for a certain amount of compensation, the cost of which could be covered by insurance taken out by Moscow for the purpose, and donor countries involved in nonproliferation aid programs in Russia would pay the rest of the compensation under a pooling system.  The second approach envisions a bond issue in which bondholders would stand to make money on their investment unless a catastrophic accident occurred — in which case their money could be used to compensate victims.

In announcing its stance on the NCI liability language yesterday, the Energy Department cited agreements reached last year at the Group of Eight summit in Canada, where the world’s leading industrialized countries and Russia launched the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.  The department indicated it would seek the same liability protections in a wide variety of other agreements.

Critics Assail Focus on Liability Language

Critics said the administration’s liability focus could lead to a broader series of moves to shrink or end threat reduction programs.

“It’s entirely possible this is going to be a chain reaction over these issues of liability,” Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council Executive Director Kenneth Luongo said.

Luongo, who initially wrote top Bush administration officials July 2 to plead in favor of keeping both programs, said yesterday in a statement, “Allowing these agreements to expire is wrong and unnecessary at this time.  It sends a terrible signal about the importance of securing the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction on Earth as rapidly as possible.”

“This issue has been debated in the dark, without any public involvement,” he said, adding that an “impression is being left that arguments will be used to kill programs and not debate them publicly.”

“At a time when the president is running around the country talking about the intersection of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism,” Luongo said, terminating NCI activities “doesn’t make any sense.”

“The point is, this is a terrible decision from a policy perspective,” Luongo said.  “If this was a new agreement … that’s a separate issue than, ‘These agreements have been in operation for five years and, in some cases, 10 years, and now we think the liability provisions are inadequate.’  Well, you have to show why they’re inadequate,” he added.

Rose Gottemoeller, senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said allowing NCI to lapse not only would concern the U.S. Energy Department and the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry, but also could damage U.S.-Russian relations more broadly at a crucial moment.

“It is a bigger issue than a DOE-Minatom issue,” Gottemoeller said.

For further information, see:

Nuclear Cities Initiative Web site

NTI history of Russian plutonium disposition efforts

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United States:  Los Alamos Director Pledges to “Drain the Swamp”

Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Pete Nanos yesterday said he would “drain the swamp” at the facility to address security and management concerns, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, July 22).

After a number of reviews investigating mismanagement and security concerns, Nanos said that only “several bad apples” were discovered.  In an address to laboratory employees, Nanos outlined his priorities for the laboratory, focusing on safety, national security, science and business management, AP reported.

“The future is in our hands,” Nanos said.  “I’m very bullish about this,” he added (Leslie Hoffman, Associated Press, July 23).

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Iran:  Officials Expect Nuclear Experts to Explain Additional Protocol

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said yesterday that he expects experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit Tehran to discuss the Additional Protocol, which would allow intrusive inspections of Iran’s nuclear activities (see GSN, July 22).

“We have asked the IAEA to send legal experts to Iran to brief us on aspects of the protocol … We hope in the next days they will arrive in Iran,” Kharrazi said.  “We will prepare a document for our leaders to decide whether Iran will join,” he added (Reuters/Washington Times, July 23).

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CTBT:  Cyprus Ratifies Treaty

Cyprus ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty July 18, bringing the total number of treaty ratifiers to 104, according to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (see GSN, July 17).

Cyprus is not one of the 44 nations that must ratify the treaty before it can enter into force.  Of those 44 nations, 32 have ratified the treaty (CTBT Organization release, July 23).

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North Korea:  Washington Considering Nonaggression Treaty

The United States might offer North Korea a formal nonaggression pact if Pyongyang agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, July 21).

During talks last week, U.S. officials told Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo that they are willing to hold a second round of talks with China and North Korea, according to the Post.  The United States is insisting, however, that the talks be immediately followed by broader negotiations, which would include South Korea, Japan and possibly Russia, U.S. officials said.

During the broader talks, U.S. officials would present a plan to end the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.  Bush administration officials are currently debating the final form of the plan.

A White House official, however, denied that the U.S. approach had shifted.

“As we have said many times, we will not submit to blackmail or grant inducements for the North to live up to its obligations,” he said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, July 22).

U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, dismissed reports that North Korea might have developed a second facility to reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium.

“The desire by the North Koreans to convince the world that they’re in the process of developing a nuclear arsenal is nothing new,” Bush said.

Bush’s comments are in sharp contrast to his earlier statements on North Korea’s nuclear development and his rhetoric on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs, the New York Times reported (David Sanger, New York Times, July 22).

Some officials, however, are casting doubt on reports of a second reprocessing site, the Washington Times reported.  U.S. officials said that krypton 85 — a byproduct of plutonium production — detected at the border between the Koreas probably came from North Korea’s known reprocessing site at Yongbyon, according to the Washington Times (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, July 22).

The State Department said the report on the second site was uncertain.

“We receive a steady stream of information on various types of activity in North Korea, much of which is unsubstantiated and can’t be confirmed, and I would put certainly the one report over the weekend into that category,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring, July 22).

North Korea Could Have Eight Nuclear Weapons by End of Year

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said yesterday that North Korea could develop up to eight nuclear weapons by the end of this year, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 15).

Perry also said that North Korea could produce five to 10 nuclear weapons next year.

“I consider that this poses an unacceptable risk to our security,” he said.  “There are plenty of bidders out there willing to bid for it.  And if any of the terror groups are willing to get nuclear weapons or are able to get that plutonium, then we could see it end up in an American city,” Perry added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 22).

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Iran:  European Union Urges Iran to Sign Additional Protocol

The European Union said yesterday that Iran must sign the Additional Protocol — which allows intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring of its nuclear activities — or risk ruining the relationship between Tehran and Brussels (see GSN, July 21).

A statement by EU foreign ministers said they “decided to review future steps of the cooperation between the EU and Iran in September,” when the IAEA is due to present a second report on Iran’s nuclear program.

European officials said that hard-line and moderate officials in Tehran were damaging bilateral ties.

“It does not matter whether they are reformers or conservatives.  They are united when it comes to a national security doctrine,” a British diplomat said (Dempsey/Bozorgmehr, Financial Times, July 21).

The United States, meanwhile, has teamed with an Iraqi political party to rehabilitate a branch of the Iraqi intelligence services that spied on Iran, according to Iraqi politicians and agents.

The Iraqi National Congress, headed by longtime exile Ahmad Chalabi, has met with senior officials from the now-defunct Iraqi spy agency known as the Mukhabarat.

“As far as what we do, we are sending back information to the Pentagon, to people who are responsible,” said Abdulaziz Kubaisi, an INC member who has been recruiting former intelligence agents (Banerjee/Jehl, New York Times, July 22).

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International Response:  Central Asian States to Meet in September on Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Five Central Asian states plan to meet in September in an effort to complete an agreement establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, a senior U.N. disarmament official told Global Security Newswire yesterday (see GSN, March 11).

The meeting, scheduled to be held by the end of September in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, will involve representatives from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, said Tsutomu Ishiguri, director of the U.N. Regional Center for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific.  The purpose of the meeting is for the Central Asian states to develop a joint response to comments on a draft treaty provided by four of the five declared nuclear weapons states. Of the five, only China has submitted no comments.

The nuclear weapons states submitted their written proposals earlier this year, but the Central Asian states later requested that they be resubmitted in Russian so that they were available in a common language, Ishiguri said, adding that the proposals were resubmitted by early March.  After the Central Asian states had an opportunity to individually review the translated comments, representatives from the Central Asian states’ U.N. missions then met twice in New York — June 3 and July 17 — to “review notes,” Ishiguri said. 

U.N. mission representatives are now expected to meet again by the end of this month to finalize details for the Tashkent meeting, Ishiguri said.  He added that the Central Asian states need to send high-level officials to the Tashkent meeting, in addition to technical experts, so that decisions can quickly be made “on the spot.” 

After the Tashkent meeting, the Central Asian states will be in a position to meet with the nuclear weapons states to discuss their proposals, Ishiguri said.  While the five nuclear weapons states cannot prevent the creation of the zone, the Central Asian states have requested that they sign a protocol to the treaty stating that they agree to respect the zone.

The United Nations hopes the treaty can be signed by the end of this year, Ishiguri said.  The Central Asian states have twice anticipated signing the treaty — once in October 2002 and again in April.

In May, Ishiguri told GSN that delays in signing the treaty should not be interpreted as a sign that the Central Asian states are losing interest in establishing the zone.  He noted then that the Central Asian states had reaffirmed their commitment to the creation of the zone in working papers presented at a meeting of the U.N. Disarmament Commission (see GSN, April 18) and during a meeting of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty members (see GSN, May 9).  He told GSN yesterday, however, that there is concern that momentum could be lost if the treaty is not signed soon.

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United States I:  Nuclear Weapons Meeting Could Draw Protests

Large protests are expected next month at Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, where U.S. nuclear officials and scientists are scheduled to discuss plans for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the Omaha World-Herald reported Thursday (see GSN, July 21).

The Aug. 7 meeting is expected to focus on whether the United States should develop low-yield nuclear weapons.

“It’s the whole enchilada, this meeting.  Anybody who is anybody in nuclear weapons will be there,” said Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, which first revealed the once-secret gathering that had been planned for almost one year (Robynn Tysver, Omaha World-Herald, July 17).

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United States II:  Energy Department Moves Forward With Weapon-Grade Uranium Reduction Program

The first shipment of low-enriched uranium produced through a program to reduce stockpiles of weapon-grade uranium was shipped last week to a site in Tennessee for further processing into nuclear reactor fuel, the U.S. Energy Department announced yesterday (see GSN, April 15).

Last week’s shipment of low-enriched uranium was created through the High-Enriched Uranium Blend Down Program, which seeks to reduce stockpiles of highly enriched uranium stored at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.  The HEU is blended down with natural uranium at the site to create low-enriched uranium, which is then sent to Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tenn.  There, the LEU will be prepared for fabrication into nuclear reactor fuel.  The program is scheduled to continue through 2007, according to the Energy release.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham yesterday praised the advance of the program.

“Today marks a big step in our nation’s nonproliferation efforts,” Abraham said.  “We have taken material that was left over from the Cold War and turned it into something that is unattractive for use in weapons.  Not only that, but we’ve turned it into a material that has an important peacetime use: producing electricity,” he said (U.S. Energy Department release, July 21).

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United States III:  Russians Visit Peacekeeper Missile Silo

In a gesture of cooperation between Cold War adversaries, five senior Russian military officials visited a heavily guarded U.S. Peacekeeper missile silo being dismantled in Wyoming yesterday, the Denver Post reported (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2002).

“It’s part of an overall process of transforming the relationship between our two countries from one of post-Cold War rivalry to one of working cooperatively,” said Brig. Gen. Frank Klotz, commander of the 20th Air Force.  The silo is located 60 miles north of Cheyenne, Wyo.

The Russian delegation included Gen. Col. Nikolay Solovtsov, commander of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (Coleman Cornelius, Denver Post, July 22).

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United States IV:  Officials Express Concern Over Los Alamos Incidents, Delay Action

U.S. Energy Department officials have expressed concern over a number of incidents at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but have decided to delay further action, Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, June 19).

In a letter sent July 7 to Los Alamos Director George Nanos, Stephen Sohinki, director of Energy’s Price-Anderson Enforcement Office, outlined a number of safety incidents that had been reported in the first half of 2003, according to Energy Daily.  For example, workers were reported to have been contaminated with tritium while removing copper piping in the laboratory’s ion beam facility in May.

Sohinki also said that one Los Alamos section had reported six incidents of “elevated airborne radioactivity levels” in the first half of the year, which resulted in personnel and room contamination.  In addition, a laboratory facility’s nuclear inventory was found to be in excess of storage limits because of a poor calculation of materials stored there, he said.

Sohinki said that while the incidents normally would have been cause for a formal investigation, he would allow Nanos to address the issues first.

“Therefore, because of your personal commitment and positive first steps toward resolving the types of systemic issues discussed in this letter, (the Office of Enforcement) will exercise enforcement discretion,” Sohinki wrote (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, July 22).  

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Might Have Second Reprocessing Facility

A second facility designed to produce weapon-grade plutonium may have been constructed by North Korea, the New York Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 18).

U.S. officials said they detected krypton 85 — a gaseous byproduct of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel into plutonium — but it did not appear that the gas was coming from Yongbyon, where North Korea was thought to have its entire stock of spent nuclear fuel rods (see GSN, July 14).

Evidence of the new site is “very worrisome, but still not conclusive,” a senior White House official said.

According to computer analysis, the gas might have been drifting from deeply buried facilities in the North Korean mountains.

“This takes a very hard problem and makes it infinitely more complicated,” said an Asian official familiar with U.S. intelligence.  “How can you verify that they have stopped a program like this if you don’t know where everything is?” the official added (Sanger/Shanker, New York Times, July 20).

South Korean officials said the evidence had not been confirmed.

The report will probably not dissuade Washington from “the firm U.S. position of seeking a peaceful and diplomatic solution” to the nuclear crisis, according to South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck.

“There is no conclusive information about such facilities,” Lee said (CNN.com, July 21).

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yeseterday and proposed a plan to hold talks with North Korea in two stages.

The first phase would include North Korea, China and the United States.  In later talks, the format would be expanded to include Japan and South Korea, Blair said.

“We cannot have a situation in which North Korea not merely continues to develop a nuclear-weapons program but proliferates and exports that technology around the world,” he said (Gordon Fairclough, Wall Street Journal, July 21).

The talks could be held as early as August, a South Korean official said Thursday (Yonhap News Agency, July 17 in FBIS-CHI, July 17).

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Iran:  U.N. Nuclear Team Arrives in Tehran

U.N. nuclear experts arrived in Tehran Saturday, 24 hours after a report indicated that enriched uranium was found in environmental samples taken from Iran, Reuters reported today (see GSN, July 18).

The Iranian nuclear agency said the visit was scheduled in advance and is not a reaction to the recent alleged findings.

“It is a routine and preplanned visit of Iran’s nuclear facilities.  They visit Iran’s nuclear sites according to their scheduled plans,” said Khalil Mousavi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

The presence of enriched uranium might indicate that Iran has been attempting to develop nuclear weapon-grade material, Reuters reported.  Iranian officials said, however, that the International Atomic Energy Agency has not discussed the issue with them.

“It is the responsibility of the IAEA to make comments on this issue, not diplomats who do not have exact information on such things,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Asefi said Saturday (Reuters/Planet Ark, July 21).  “As soon as the agency takes a stance on this, then we will announce our stance,” he added.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency is reviewing the evidence and U.N. officials will draw conclusions after an investigation is completed.

“Results of the environmental sample analyses are being reviewed at the agency, and we expect to take more samples over the next few weeks,” Fleming said (CNN.com, July 18).

Iran said it is not considering withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but it is also not ready to agree to the Additional Protocol, which would allow for more intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring of its nuclear activities.

“Withdrawing from [the] NPT is not on the agenda and Iran abides by its obligations,” Asefi said.  “But for the moment, the question of signing the Additional Protocol is not on the agenda,” he added.

Asefi said Iran has a “positive approach” toward the protocol, and “signing the Additional Protocol is a national decision based on a general consensus by the supreme council of national security and parliament’s approval” (Agence France-Presse, July 21).

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U.S. Plans:  Nuclear Proliferation Threatens U.S. “Empire,” Historian Says

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States maintains a beneficent global “empire,” but constraining nuclear proliferation must become a priority if Washington wants to retain its unprecedented power, an Oxford University history professor said Thursday.

“Nuclear weapons have changed the nature of empire,” said Niall Ferguson, speaking at an American Enterprise Institute debate here on the existence of the U.S. imperial realm.

Ferguson, who recently authored Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, argued that the United States is, and should be, an empire.  He said U.S. forces abroad could spread stability, democracy and free markets, but Washington must accept its imperial role and become heavily involved in countering emerging threats.

However, Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued that the United States is an extremely powerful and positive global force, but it does not rise to the level of an empire.  He said U.S. allies overseas are not imperial subjects, but instead keep up a “continuing voluntary association.”

Ferguson said the United States must maintain forces and influence in countries long after the U.S. public wants them withdrawn if it is to maintain its status as an empire.  The U.S. desire to pull back from recently conquered countries, such as Iraq, only leads to instability in those areas, he argued.

Washington must also work with other countries to push nonproliferation efforts “if you don’t want tyrants to get nuclear weapons,” Ferguson said.

Kagan said the United States is powerful, but its democratic underpinnings prevent an empire from developing.  He called the empire argument “catastrophic, in addition to being wrong,” saying that the empire label would foster anti-U.S. sentiment abroad.

Ferguson countered that the rest of the world already believes the United States is an empire — it is only Americans who believe otherwise.

He said, however, that the United States should extend its empire while placating — and intentionally misleading — local populations with promises of troops withdrawals.  In countries where the United States maintains a large military presence, Ferguson encouraged U.S. leaders to “say you are not an empire, say you will leave soon,” but “the key is not to mean these things,” he said.

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United States I:  Strategic Command to Discuss Nuclear Stockpile Next Month

The U.S. Strategic Command is expected to discuss the future status and makeup of the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a meeting scheduled for next month, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology (see GSN, July 17).

The meeting is expected to include representatives from the U.S. Energy Department, military and laboratories, according to Aviation Week.  Participants will discuss what types of nuclear weapons will be needed to combat a “new set of potential adversaries,” senior officials overseeing the nuclear stockpiles said.

The U.S Defense Department “needs to identify shortcomings of the stockpile in dealing with rogue nations, terrorists or nations that harbor terrorists,” the senior official said.

In addition, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board is expected to soon complete its strategic strike assessment, Aviation Week reported.  The assessment is expected to address nuclear modernization issues, such as whether Cold War-era alert postures should be modified, according to board Chairman Bill Schneider (Robert Wall, Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 21).

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International Response:  IAEA Board Approves Budget Increase

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors agreed Friday to increase the agency’s budget for the first time since the late 1980s, according to an IAEA press release.

The board agreed to a $15 million increase over the IAEA’s current $245 million budget, according to the release.  The agency’s budget is expected to increase by $25 million by 2007.  Most of the increase is slated to go toward the IAEA’s verification program because it “has been experiencing the greatest demand for additional resources and has for years been the most chronically underfunded,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said.

The budget must now be approved by the IAEA General Conference, scheduled to be held in September.

The budget increase “represents a real vote of confidence in the IAEA and a recognition of the importance of our work,” ElBaradei said.  “It is a long overdue but very welcome first step in tackling the chronic underfunding of the IAEA,” he said (International Atomic Energy Agency release, July 18).

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United States II:  House of Representatives Approves Fiscal 2004 Energy Appropriations Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 377-26 to approve the fiscal 2004 energy and water appropriations bill (see GSN I and GSN II, July 17).

The bill includes an amendment prohibiting the transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea, which would effectively end a project to construct two light-water nuclear reactors there that began under the auspices of the 1994 Agreed Framework, according to Reuters.

The U.S. Senate must still approve its own version of the bill (Reuters/Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19).

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Iran:  Inspectors Discover Enriched Uranium in Samples

U.N. inspectors have detected enriched uranium in environmental samples taken from Iran, Reuters reported today (see GSN, July 17).

The enrichment level of the uranium might indicate that Iran was attempting to make weapon-grade uranium, diplomats said.  Iran did not notify the International Atomic Energy Agency of its enrichment plans.

On its own, however, the discovery is not conclusive evidence that Tehran was enriching uranium, according to the diplomats.

“The results of environmental sample analyses are being reviewed at the agency, and we expect to take more samples over the next few weeks,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

“Only the IAEA will be in a position to judge the significance of the analysis results.  At this point, we are still in the middle of a complex inspection process in Iran, in which we are investigating a number of unresolved issues,” she added (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, July 18).

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U.S.-Russia I:  Washington, Moscow Sign Plutonium Reactor Access Accord

U.S. and Russian officials signed an agreement in Moscow yesterday giving non-Russian personnel access to two closed nuclear cities where Russia has agreed to shut down its only remaining plutonium production reactors.  The agreement will enable U.S.-funded contractors to enter the cities and construct two coal-burning power plants to replace the three nuclear weapon plants that also provide power and heat to surrounding communities.

Yesterday’s signing advances a long-established, U.S.-Russian agreement in principle to end Russian plutonium production which continues at the cities of Seversk, formerly Tomsk-7, and Zheleznogorsk, formerly Kranoyarsk-26.

“Replacing these reactors with fossil fuel energy is critical to eliminating the production of weapons-grade plutonium in Russia and closing these facilities,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

Abraham and Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyanstev formally signed the reactor shutdown plan in March (see GSN, March 12) and in May the United States selected contractors to perform the work (see GSN, May 28).  The reactors are expected to shut down in five to eight years.

The access agreement allows outsiders to perform activities related to building the new power plants, but negotiators are still working on an access agreement to allow outside experts to install reactor safety improvements while they continue to operate.

“This is one further step in what has been a long process,” said Matthew Bunn, a researcher at Harvard University in Boston (Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 18).

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India:  U.S. Company Pleads Guilty to Nuclear-Related Export Violations

The U.S. freight-forwarding company DSV Samson Transport pleaded guilty yesterday to violating U.S export control regulations designed to prevent nuclear proliferation by forwarding more than 30 shipments to India from 1999 to 2001, according to a U.S. Commerce Department press release (see GSN, July 3).

In its guilty plea, DSV Samson admitted to forwarding at least 36 shipments to Indian entities, including the Indian Atomic Energy Department’s Directorate of Purchase and Stores, without required export licenses, the Commerce release said.  U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced the company to a $250,000 fine, an $800 special assessment and five years probation.  In addition, DSV Samson reached an agreement with Commerce’s Industry and Security Bureau to pay a civil penalty of $399,000 to resolve related administrative charges.

“This case demonstrates that the Department of Commerce will hold freight forwarders accountable for fulfilling their responsibilities under our export-control laws,” Acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement Lisa Prager said.  “Forwarders play a key role in the global supply chain.  As such, it is important that they be extremely attentive to their export control obligations,” she said (U.S. Commerce Department release, July 17).

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North Korea:  Chinese Official Heading to Washington

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo left Beijing for Washington yesterday to meet with White House officials and discuss the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the New York Times reported (see GSN, July 17).

Dai recently returned from a four-day visit to Pyongyang, according to the Times.

“China hopes to see the quick resumption of the peace talks,” said Kong Quan, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.  “The purpose of the Beijing talks would be to seek a final settlement to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Kong added (Joseph Kahn, New York Times, July 18).

China is pushing to resolve the issue, Kong said.

Beijing also called for calm on the peninsula after an exchange of gunfire across the DMZ this week.  Kong urged the two nations to avoid pushing the confrontation further (Chinese People’s Daily, July 17).

China believes North Korea has reprocessed enough plutonium to develop a nuclear weapon, spurring the latest push in Chinese diplomacy, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

“The Chinese are scared,” said a Western diplomat in Beijing.  “It’s in their interests to keep open the process of negotiations for as long as possible,” the diplomat said.

Beijing’s intelligence services have determined that North Korea has the nuclear material and the equipment necessary to build a weapon, according to Western diplomats and officials who have seen or were briefed on internal Chinese government documents (Charles Hutzler, Wall Street Journal, July 18).

Russia Wants Role in Talks

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that Moscow would be a logical inclusion in multilateral talks on the nuclear standoff.

“We favor a formula that would bring results,” Alexander Yakovenko said.  “If the formula were opened out, Russian participation would be logical,” he added (Agence France-Presse, July 18).

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Russia:  Naval Official Denied Submarines Stopped Patrolling

Contrary to U.S. reports, Russian Navy officials said they never suspended worldwide nuclear submarine patrols, ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday (see GSN, July 1).

“In reality, the Navy has stepped up its activities this year because we have received sufficient funding for combat training,” said Capt. Igor Dygalo, an aide to the Russian Navy’s top ranking official  (see GSN, July 8; ITAR-Tass/CDI Russia Weekly, July 14).

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U.S.-Russia II:  Future Arms Control Treaties Are Unlikely, U.S. Officials Says

The U.S. ambassador to Russia has said the United States and Russia may no longer need to create arms control treaties to further reduce their nuclear arsenals, ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday (see GSN, May 16, 2002).

Treaties calling for cuts beyond the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty may no longer be needed because of the changing relationship between the United States and Russia from adversaries to allies, Alexander Vershbow said, noting that the United States does not have similar treaties with allies such as the United Kingdom or France.

“I think with or without treaties, we will continue to share a common interest in reducing nuclear weapons to the lowest possible level consistent with our security, our security interests,” Vershbow said (ITAR-Tass/CDI Russia Weekly, July 17).

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