U.S.-Russia:  Cooperative Plutonium Disposition Activities Held Up While Liability Concerns Negotiated

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Following last week’s termination of a U.S.-Russian agreement to examine scientific and technical issues affecting the disposition of plutonium removed from Russian nuclear weapons, the U.S. State Department said yesterday that activity under a subsequent agreement on the actual disposition of the material is being put on hold (see GSN, July 25).

Last week, the 1998 Plutonium Science and Technology agreement was allowed to expire because of State Department concerns that its liability provisions would not sufficiently protect U.S. officials or contractors in case of injuries or damages occurring during activities carried out under the agreement.

Some experts indicated last week that certain projects carried out under the defunct 1998 agreement could continue under the more comprehensive 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition agreement, which in its current form contains no liability provisions.

U.S. officials are now saying, though, that activities under the latter agreement — which lays out terms and timetables according to which the United States and Russia are each to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium — will be put on hold until a liability protocol is negotiated.

“Industrial-scale disposition activities will not go forward under the Plutonium Management and Disposition agreement of 2000 until adequate liability protections are agreed,” State Department spokeswoman Tara Rigler said yesterday.

A U.S. official said not only actual disposition — which was not scheduled to begin for several years — but also design and construction of facilities are on hold.  The official added that some activities that had begun under the 1998 agreement have stopped since it expired last week, but stressed that “intense” U.S.-Russian talks are under way in a bid to break the logjam over the 2000 agreement and allow activities to continue.

Washington is aiming to reach an agreement by late this year to preserve the existing timetable for the U.S.-Russian plutonium disposition program, officials said.

Meanwhile, some disagreement has become apparent between the State Department and the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration over the status of activities under the 2000 agreement.

“I’m not sure how it can be on hold, because it doesn’t expire, and we are continuing our programs under that agreement,” NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said today.

U.S. Looking for Umbrella Agreement-Style Liability Language

The United States is seeking, as a general standard in threat reduction texts, to obtain protections “commensurate with those in the [1992] Cooperative Threat Reduction umbrella agreement,” Rigler said.  The State Department has decided to renegotiate liability protections in agreements with protections it deems insufficient as those agreements come up for renewal, according to U.S. officials familiar with the situation.

One major objection the State Department has to the 1998 agreement’s liability provisions is that they exempt Russia from liability in cases of “premeditated” acts leading to damage or injury.  The 1992 umbrella agreement has no such exemption for Russia.

The State Department’s main focus now is on negotiating a liability protocol to the 2000 agreement, according to U.S. officials.  Agreement on such a protocol could render the 1998 text essentially obsolete, since the newer agreement provides for research and development activities in addition to actual plutonium disposition.

The 1998 agreement includes provisions under which, according to the officials, some activity governed by existing contracts can continue.  However, no new projects will be undertaken under the agreement, officials said.

In explaining the new liability focus, the U.S. State and Energy departments have repeatedly cited guidelines that Group of Eight countries agreed on last year at a summit in Canada.

A third U.S.-Russian agreement, the Nuclear Cities Initiative agreement, will also be allowed to expire later this year unless the same liability questions are resolved in the text, the U.S. Energy Department announced last week (see GSN, July 23).

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North Korea:  Washington Wants Security Council Debate on Crisis

The United States will attempt to bring the North Korean nuclear crisis to the U.N. Security Council, Yonhap News Agency reported today (see GSN, July 28).

Washington has long sought to involve other countries in any resolution to the 10-month standoff on the Korean Peninsula.

“It’s U.S. policy and has been U.S. policy for some time that we believe that the Security Council should look at the situation with regard to North Korea,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.  “We’ve talked to a lot of other people in New York about moving that forward, and we’ll continue to discuss it with the Security Council members,” he added (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring, July 29).

A top State Department official said that bringing the crisis to the Security Council would not conflict with U.S. efforts to engage Pyongyang in talks.

“I think it will be complementary,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, adding that Security Council debate on the issue was “appropriate” (Associated Press, July 29).

Bolton said there has been no clear progress toward talks with Beijing, Pyongyang and Washington.

“I don’t think there is anything on a date one way or the other that I could really indicate,” he said (Agence France Presse/Yahoo!News, July 29).

A senior U.S. official said, however, that talks could be restarted by the middle of August, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported last week (Takao Hishinuma, Yomiuri Shimbun, July 23).

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Iran:  IAEA Teams Headed to Iran Next Month

The International Atomic Energy Agency will send two groups of experts to Iran next month, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, July 28).

The first team — composed of legal experts — will spend two days in Iran to explain the fine points of the Additional Protocol, which would allow for intrusive IAEA monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities.  The IAEA and several Western governments have been pushing for Tehran to sign the protocol.

The second team will conduct standard inspections, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 28).

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Ukraine:  Officials Discuss Extending Disarmament Projects

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have recently concluded a meeting on the possible extension of disarmament projects conducted in Ukraine, according to Interfax (see GSN, July 28).

During a meeting in Kiev, U.S. Defense Department officials met with Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk and officials from the Ukrainian National Space Agency, according to the U.S. Embassy in Kiev.  During the meeting, the officials discussed a Ukrainian proposal to prolong the disarmament projects, which work to remove the remnants of the former Soviet strategic arsenal based in Ukraine.  The U.S. officials, who left Ukraine Friday, said a reply to the proposal would be given within three weeks, Interfax reported (Interfax, July 28, BBC Worldwide Monitoring, July 29).  

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Iran:  Tehran’s IAEA Representative Calls for Additional Protocol

Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday that he wants his government to sign the Additional Protocol, which would allow intrusive inspections of Tehran’s nuclear facilities (see GSN, July 24).

The protocol was “not conceived just for Iran or Third World countries, and sooner or later all IAEA member states will have to sign up,” Ali Akbar Salehi said.

“I hope that we can overcome the problem by the next IAEA board of governors meeting in September through the measures that top officials are going to take in the coming month,” he added, noting that the Additional Protocol would ease international pressure on Iran (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 27).

Experts, however, are skeptical that Iran will sign the protocol by September, BBC.com reported (BBC.com, July 27).

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North Korea:  Talks Between Beijing, Pyongyang Progressing Slowly

Chinese efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula are not making much progress, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said today (see GSN, July 25).

“The negotiating process between North Korea and China is not speedy, but has slowed down a bit,” Yoon said.  “North Korea holds the key.  The ball now is in North Korea’s court,” he added.

China is currently attempting to arrange trilateral talks with North Korea and the United States.

“No one can tell for sure what the timing of the talks will be,” Yoon said.  “Since North Korea has yet to respond, we can’t predict the timing.  We need to wait,” he said (Kim Kyoung-wha, Reuters, July 28).

Yoon said he has lost his early optimism that talks could begin soon.

“At the beginning I believed it was possible to resume the talks at an early date,” Yoon said.  “But as time passes, the North Korean-Chinese consultation is slowing down, rather than speeding up.  We need to wait,” he added (Agence France-Presse, July 28).

John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, is in Beijing to discuss the nuclear standoff with Chinese officials, Agence France-Presse reported today.  Bolton is also scheduled to visit South Korea and Japan this week (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 28).

At a press conference today in Beijing, Bolton said China has worked to resolve the crisis but the U.N. Security Council should address the issue.

“I am not sure that there’s anything else specifically that we can think of that the government here could do that they haven’t already tried,” he said.  “Those who say that the Security Council is not the appropriate place to go have to take into account the impact of their statements on the long-term significance of the potential role of the council in a variety of disputes,” Bolton added (John Ruwitch, Reuters/MSNBC.com, July 28).

Roh Says Nonaggression Treaty Unnecessary

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said yesterday that the United States does not need to sign an nonaggression treaty with Pyongyang, a move that North Korea has been calling for throughout the crisis.

“I don’t think we need to give this particular form of legal assurance to North Korea,” Roh said in a U.S. television interview.

He also dismissed reports that North Korea has made extensive progress in reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods.

“Both of our governments think that North Korea’s claims are exaggerated.  Specifically, the argument that it has already completed reprocessing plutonium and that it is very close to developing a nuclear weapon.  I think these arguments are exaggerated,” Roh said.

Despite the reprocessing reports, “when we look at the analysis, even if they did reprocess the plutonium, it was done on a very small scale,” he added (Federal News Service transcript, July 27).

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Russia:  Moscow Purchases Soviet-Era ICBMs from Ukraine

Russia has purchased Soviet-era SS-19 ICBMs from Ukraine and has begun work on new advanced ballistic missile submarines, officials said Friday (see GSN, Oct. 10, 2002).

While Ukraine has dismantled most of its former Soviet arsenal, it decided in October to sell about 30 retained SS-19s to Russia, according to the Associated Press.  Interfax-Military News Agency reported Friday that the missile transfer has been completed.

Russia’s purchase of the ICBMs is an easy way for Moscow to increase its strategic capabilities, said Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Moscow office.

“It will allow Russia to save funds that would have to be spent on building expensive new missiles,” he said.

In addition, a new nuclear submarine armed with advanced ICBMs is set to enter into service in 2006, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Friday (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Boston Globe, July 27).

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Israel:  IAEA to Discuss Tel Aviv’s Nuclear Program

The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to discuss Israel’s long-suspected nuclear weapons program during the agency’s next general conference, scheduled to be held in Vienna Sept. 15-19, Hi Pakistan reported today (see GSN, June 30).

The IAEA agreed to discuss Israel’s nuclear program at the request of Arab members, according to Hi Pakistan.  A number of Arab states have compiled a fact sheet on Israel’s nuclear program to be sent to IAEA members before the September meeting.  Some experts believe that Israel possesses between 200 to 300 nuclear warheads, Hi Pakistan reported (Hi Pakistan, July 28).

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United States:  Quality Issues Delay Minuteman Upgrades

U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman will be late in delivering rebuilt rocket motors for U.S. nuclear missiles because of problems at a subcontractor’s facility, Bloomberg.com reported yesterday (see GSN, June 11).

The deliveries are behind schedule because of “systemic quality problems” at a United Technologies Pratt & Whitney Space Propulsion plant.  Delivery of the rocket motors, which are being rebuilt for the Minuteman III ICBM arsenal, will not be back on schedule until August 2005, according to Air Force documents.

The discovery of the problems has highlighted “the systemic quality problem that exists at Pratt & Whitney,” said Air Force Major Heidi Fier, program manager for the Minuteman III Propulsion Replacement program, in an April 25 report.

Northrop Grumman runs the $6 billion, 15-year effort to modernize the Minuteman III missile fleet (Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg.com, July 27).

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U.S.-Russia:  Washington Allows Plutonium Disposition Agreement to Lapse

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — As expected, a 1998 U.S.-Russian agreement on plutonium disposition was allowed to expire this week because of U.S. concerns that the agreement had insufficient liability protections for U.S. officials and contractors, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration confirmed today.

Known as the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement, the measure provides for scientific and technical cooperation between the United States and Russia on the withdrawal of plutonium from nuclear military programs.

“I cannot understand why the administration would let key aspects of the program to get rid of so much weapons-grade plutonium lapse.  Keeping fissile material out of the hands of terrorists seems a critical step in the war on terrorism,” U.S. Representative Ellen Tauscher, who has been a vocal proponent of maintaining such programs, said today.

The expiration follows the announcement Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Department that another 1998 threat-reduction measure, the Nuclear Cities Initiative agreement, will be allowed to expire in September unless Russia agrees to changes in liability provisions.  Tauscher and five other Democrats wrote the Bush administration this week to protest the move (see GSN, July 23).

The source of U.S. insistence on the liability language changes is the State Department, according to NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes.

“We just want to proceed with our programs, essentially, and we don’t want to get bogged down in these legal issues, but … the State Department is insisting on some legal changes on the liability issues,” Wilkes said.

Wilkes said no new projects could be started under the plutonium agreement now that it has lapsed, but he added that “there’s a lot that’s already in the pipeline that’s been planned.” 

“This should have no short-term effect, because we fully support the program, and we have not stopped. … We are continuing work,” he added.

In any case, he added, “We anticipate this issue is going to be resolved.”

The Washington director of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Leonard Spector, called it “unfortunate that there is this perturbation in the plutonium disposition program” but added that it “appears that, in this particular case, the impact of the agreement lapsing will not have a significant impact overall.”

The Energy Department indicated Tuesday that it expects to reinstate the NCI agreement once the liability concerns are resolved, and Wilkes said the same sequence of events is possible in the case of the Plutonium Science and Technology agreement.

Some aspects of the plutonium agreement are also covered by the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition agreement, and experts have said activities carried out under the auspices of the 1998 agreement could conceivably continue under the 2000 text.  Wilkes said today, “There’s maneuverability room, I guess, between the two agreements.”

A liability protocol to the 2000 agreement has yet to be negotiated.  The Bush administration has been seeking a single liability standard for all threat reduction programs that would be similar to the one established in the 1992 Cooperative Threat Reduction “umbrella agreement.” The provisions in that agreement assign Russia near-total liability for damages and injuries that occur in the context of activities carried out under the agreement.

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CTBT:  Diplomats Push for Nuclear Test Ban Amid Setbacks

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — With mixed success, a number of nations have recently intensified efforts to persuade a dozen key countries, including the United States, to ratify the treaty banning all nuclear weapons test explosions.

Diplomats from Austria, Finland and Japan have been pressing their counterparts around the globe to support the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by providing their full dues payments or by signing and ratifying the treaty.

Last month, the European Union also said it would make demarches to national governments urging them to sign and ratify the pact.  Three U.N. disarmament promotion centers stationed in Latin America, Africa and Asia also have received funding from Austria to advocate treaty ratification.

The efforts are being made in anticipation of a Vienna conference scheduled for early September to promote the treaty’s entry into force.  To take effect, the treaty requires 44 specific countries to ratify the accord, but only 32 have done so.  Holdout nations include China, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Vietnam and the United States, which signed the treaty in 1996.

In a breakthrough, Algeria deposited its instruments of ratification last week (see GSN, July 17).

“We are hopeful that some of the remaining 12 will do it still even before the meeting takes place,” said Tom Groenberg, Finland’s ambassador to the organization responsible for implementing the treaty.

India Will Be Absent

Despite the recent efforts to promote the treaty, signs suggest that entry into force will not occur soon.  In particular, India has indicated that it will not participate in the September conference, Groenberg said.

India has previously opposed the treaty, arguing that a nuclear testing ban that was not unaccompanied by progress toward global nuclear disarmament would unfairly help preserve a nuclear weapons advantage for some states.  India and Pakistan each conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and are the only nations to conduct such tests since the treaty was opened for signature in 1996.

U.S. officials also have indicated they will not send a representative to the conference, saying they should not participate in encouraging other countries to ratify in light of the Bush administration’s expressed opposition to U.S. ratification, Global Security Newswire reported this month (see GSN, July 9).

The administration has said the United States might someday need to resume testing to address potential problems with its nuclear warheads stockpile or possibly to test new weapons.

Perhaps of greatest concern is North Korea, which is not expected to attend, and which experts suspect might in the coming months attempt a nuclear weapons test explosion to prove it has developed a nuclear weapons capability.

“I think there is an urgency today, which is as high today as when the treaty was negotiated in the middle 1990s,” Groenberg said.

A North Korean test, he said, “would certainly be a blow and is going to weaken the understanding which has emerged [that] … there is, after all, a moratorium,” he said.

Realistically, Groenberg said, the treaty would not likely enter into force in the next three years.

Prospects for Additional Successes Seen

Still, he and Austrian Ambassador Thomas Stelzer, the current six-month chairman of the treaty’s preparatory commission, see additional areas for near-term success.

Some of the remaining holdouts have not ratified simply for technical reasons or “minor issues,” Stelzer said.

“There is a very clear technical obstacle in the case of Colombia.  It is an internal issue that is about to be resolved,” he said.  “Also, in the case of Indonesia, I hear they are also very close to ratifying,” Stelzer added.

Other countries, though, may not be as close.

“It’s very difficult to believe China would ratify before the United States had ratified,” Stelzer said.

According to Groenberg, representatives from Austria, Finland and Japan have approached the Bush administration on the matter.

“The administration has made it clear that they are not going to support ratification of the treaty,” Stelzer noted.

Israel and Egypt would be likely to follow the U.S. lead on the matter, he said, adding that Iran “has been a little more cautious about ratification until specific neighbors in the region have ratified.”

The country stopped sending monitoring station data back to Vienna last year, citing the treaty’s nonratified status, and has not resumed the flow (see GSN, March 8, 2002).  

With respect to the civil war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Stelzer said, “my judgment would be it is just a matter of organization.  There are different priorities right now.”

Pakistan, meanwhile, has indicated it would ratify the treaty as soon as India does, he said.

Most critical, Stelzer said, is U.S. ratification.  “It’s my own personal view that if the United States ratified, all of the others would ratify,” he said.

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North Korea I:  Biden Wants Peace Pact, Aide Says

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wants the White House to agree to a nonaggression pact with North Korea if Pyongyang agrees to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, a congressional aide said yesterday (see GSN, July 24).

Negotiations will not resolve the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula “if either side feels they are negotiating under the gun,” said Frank Jannuzi, an aide to Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.).

Washington wants Pyongyang to rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but North Korea has said that it needs to develop nuclear weapons to deter a U.S. attack.  U.S. President George W. Bush has said he wants to resolve the situation peacefully, but he has pointedly refused to rule out the possibility of military strikes against North Korean nuclear or military sites.

Jannuzi spoke at the Korea Peace Forum in Washington, where speakers from a variety of South Korean and Korean American organizations called for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

“Our diplomacy must be resolute but creative,” Jannuzi said of the nonaggression pact, adding that, “we don’t know yet exactly what form this … might take.”

Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is also seeking a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, according to Keith Luce, one of Lugar’s top aides.

“Senator Lugar supports the president in his statements that he has no intentions to attack North Korea,” Luce said.

While the forum focused on a diplomatic settlement to end the crisis, Jannuzi said that the history of animosity on the peninsula could stand in the way of peace.

“The fundamental problem here is the complete lack of trust,” he said.

Another forum participant said she would not be surprised if war breaks out, sooner rather than later.

“The bubble is going to burst,” she said.

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North Korea II:  Pyongyang Threatens to Build Small Nuclear Weapons

North Korea has threatened to build tactical nuclear weapons in response to U.S. efforts to develop low-yield nuclear weapons, CNN.com reported (see GSN, July 24).

“The D.P.R.K. will consider the ultra-modern weapons the new conservatives of the U.S. try to use as tactical nuclear weapons, which compels the D.P.R.K. to make as powerful weapons as them,” North Korean officials said yesterday.

North Korea accused the United States of shunning direct negotiations and “trying to complicate the issue” (CNN.com, July 25).

U.S. President George W. Bush telephoned South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to discuss the crisis, the Korea Herald reported.

“The two leaders exchanged opinions about multilateral nuclear talks and expressed firm belief that (they) will be able to find a key to resolving the North’s nuclear issue peacefully through multilateral talks,” the South Korean administration said (Korea Herald, July 25).

The Pyongyang International Tribunal on U.S. Crimes in Korea, meanwhile, has charged every U.S. president from Harry Truman to Bush with war crimes (Korean Central News Agency, July 25).

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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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