North Korea:  Pyongyang Agrees to Multilateral Talks

North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks — including as many as six nations — to help defuse the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, July 30).

Pyongyang’s ambassador to Moscow, Pak Ui Chun, delivered the news to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“On his leadership’s instructions, the ambassador said that North Korea supports holding six-nation talks with Russia’s participation to resolve the current difficult situation on the Korean Peninsula, and is taking active steps to organize (these talks),” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.  “Russia welcomed this constructive decision of Pyongyang,” it added.

North Korea had been insisting on direct talks with the United States to settle the crisis (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31).

The announcement came after a top U.S. diplomat derided North Korean requests for direct, bilateral negotiations with Washington.  Pyongyang’s position is a “one-note piano concerto,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton.

Bolton also said that North Koreans live a “hellish nightmare” while “tyrannical dictator” Kim Jong Il lives like royalty, BBC News reported today (BBC News, July 31).

“The days of (North Korean) blackmail are over,” Bolton said while in Seoul.  “Kim Jong Il is dead wrong to think that developing nuclear weapons will improve his security,” he added (Martin Nesirky, Reuters, July 31).

Bolton held talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan, the Korea Herald reported.

“Bolton said he felt during his visit to China that negotiations for nuclear talks have slowed down but China is still cautiously optimistic,” a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

During the talks, Bolton reportedly said that the “ball is North Korea’s court” (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, July 31).

Yoon and Bolton reportedly agreed “that the North Korean issue should be handled in the U.N. Security Council, but what’s important is the timing on when the council deals with the issue,” said Oh Joon, a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official.  “Our view is that we should wait a little bit more since international efforts are focused on finding a way to resume multilateral talks,” Oh added (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, July 31).

U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that he had spoken with Chinese President Hu Jintao about the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula.

“I told President Hu that it is very important for us to get Japan and South Korea and Russia involved as well,” Bush said.  “We are actually beginning to make serious progress about sharing responsibility on this issue, in such a way that I believe will lead to an attitudinal change by Kim Jong Il,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31).

The construction of light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea, meanwhile, will most likely be suspended in August, Yonhap News Agency reported.  The United States and its regional allies are continuing to build the reactors under the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea agreed to halt all nuclear activities in exchange for the reactors.  Washington reportedly told South Korea and Japan that it would not allow technology transfers to the North (Yonhap News Agence/BBC Monitoring, July 31).

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China:  Pentagon Says Chinese May Be Reconsidering No-First-Use Policy

By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Chinese strategists may be modifying the conditions they believe would justify Chinese use of theater nuclear weapons against U.S. forces in East Asia, possibly in the context of a war over Taiwan, the U.S. Defense Department said yesterday in an annual report to Congress.

The Pentagon said the review may be taking place despite China’s standing promise not to be the first side in a conflict to use nuclear weapons.

“As China improves its strategic forces, despite Beijing’s ‘no-first-use’ pledge, there are indications that some strategists are reconsidering the conditions under which Beijing would employ theater nuclear weapons against U.S. forces in the region,” the report reads.

The sentence is a rare addition to the content of last year’s version of the report, much of which is reproduced identically this year.

The Defense Department said China also continues to acquire more ballistic missiles and long-range strike aircraft as it seeks to prepare itself for a potential war over Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province and the United States has committed to supporting militarily (see GSN, Sept. 10, 2002).

The report says China is modernizing its military to “diversify its options for use of force” against targets including Taiwan “and to complicate United States intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict.”

Besides the warning on China’s no-first-use policy, the report also includes new items that bear on Beijing’s missile capabilities.

After putting the number of China’s short-range ballistic missiles at approximately 350 last year, the department said China now has approximately 450 of the missiles, and that the number is likely to increase by about 75 per year over the near term.

“The accuracy and lethality of this force also are increasing,” the report reads.

In a related development, China is said to be developing variants of its CSS-6 short-range ballistic missile that could reach Taiwan or U.S. installations in Okinawa, Japan, depending on where they were deployed. In addition, the report says, the Chinese navy has “fully integrated” its first two Russian-made Sovremennyy-class guided missile destroyers and has contracted with Russia for two more of the destroyers.

Experts within and outside the Defense Department said China seems more interested in seeking tools with which to coerce Taiwan and possibly the United States than in preparing any military offensive.

In other highlights, the report indicates that China views the United States as its chief potential adversary in the region; that Beijing’s military spending may be as much as $65 billion a year, despite China’s announced spending of $20 billion (see GSN, March 5); and that China continues to rely heavily on Russia for military acquisitions, spending approximately $2 billion yearly — or twice as much as during the 1990s — on advanced Russian weapons systems.

Experts Blast, Praise Report

Critics of the Bush administration’s China policy called the report an exaggeration of Beijing’s military capabilities, while supporters said the administration is correcting a longstanding aversion in Washington to contemplating the gravity of the Chinese threat.

“This is part of the here-come-the-Chinese contingent that’s trying to do with the Chinese what we did with the Soviet Union for many years, and that’s sort of magnify the Chinese threat,” said Ralph Cossa, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Pacific Forum.

Cossa said the Pentagon’s China reports are less convincing, though, than its past demonstrations of Soviet power, which contained many graphics comparing Soviet and U.S. capabilities.

“When you [create] a chart that shows [the difference between] American strategic bombers and Chinese strategic bombers, it’s laughable,” he said, adding that China relies on “antiquated equipment.”

“There are certainly people in the Pentagon who are looking to justify another major threat,” Cossa said.

“My guess,” he said of the report’s claim that China is reconsidering conditions for the use of theater nuclear weapons, “is that this is a very self-serving comment on the part of the Pentagon, which is itself looking for enhanced ways in which to make nuclear weapons useful.”

Larry Wortzel, the Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign policy and defense studies, took a different view.

“The Department of Defense is being very realistic in assessing just where the Chinese military is improving and the critical places where the Chinese military [indicates] the United States as its target, not Taiwan,” said Wortzel, who participated in a U.S. Congress-directed commission that assessed CIA intelligence on China.

“It is no longer politically incorrect to say realistic things about the Chinese military,” Wortzel said.

Wortzel supported the report’s finding that China’s development of greater short-range ballistic missile capabilities is meant in part to disrupt potential U.S. involvement in a conflict over Taiwan.

“We’re not looking for a fight,” he said of the United States, “but if we have to get in one because they attack Taiwan, it’s going to cause us to be a little bit more careful.”

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Iran:  Bush Wants Europeans to Pressure Tehran

U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that the European Union should put pressure on Iran to abandon alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, the Financial Times reported (see GSN, July 30).

Asked about possible military action against Iran, Bush said that he wants a peaceful solution but “all options remain on the table.”

“I believe the best way to deal with the Iranians at this point in time is to convince others to join us in a clear declaration that the development of nuclear weapons is not in their interests,” he said (Edward Alden, Financial Times, July 31).

“It’s going to require more than one voice saying that, however.  It’s going to require a collective effort of the Europeans, for example, to recognize the true threat of an armed Iran to achieving peace in the Middle East,” he added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31).

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Russia:  Moscow to Destroy 18 SS-18 ICBMs by End of Year

A Russian military official has said that Moscow plans to dismantle 18 SS-18 ICBMs by the end of the year, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, July 24).  The missiles’ silos will also be destroyed, the official said (Associated Press/Russia Journal, July 31).

“Under the schedule of SMF [strategic missile force] reductions, six silo launchers for RS-20 [SS-18] missiles have been blown up.  Another 12 launchers will be destroyed before the end of the year.  As planned, three regiments equipped with missile systems whose service life has expired will be decommissioned in 2003,” a Russian Defense Ministry official said (Gateway Russia, July 31).

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North Korea:  South Korea Rejects Security Council Intervention

South Korea’s foreign minister yesterday dismissed U.S. efforts to bring the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula to the U.N. Security Council (see GSN, July 29).

“I think it better for us to resolve this outside the U.N. framework,” Yoon Young-kwan said.

Yoon said that Security Council efforts would only dissuade North Korea from abandoning its nuclear ambitions.  He acknowledged, however, that a North Korean response to U.S. proposals on peace talks has been unhurried.

“The timing of the answers seems to be a little slower than we expected,” he added (Ward/Mallet, Financial Times, July 30).

A South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, however, that Seoul was not opposed to U.N. involvement but was wary of the timing of such a move.  The issue has not caused a rift between the United States and South Korea, according to Kim Sun-heung (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 30).

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton is scheduled to hold talks today with South Korean officials on the nuclear crisis (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, July 30).

According to a top South Korean foreign policy adviser, however, North Korea’s demands for a nonaggression treaty could hamper peace negotiations.  Washington is not likely to provide Pyongyang with such a treaty, said Ban Ki-moon, a presidential adviser on foreign policy (Soo-jeong Lee, Associated Press, July 30).

The United States is developing a proposal to calm North Korea’s security fears, but it will only put the idea forward during multilateral talks, Reuters reported.

“The United States is preparing a ‘concept paper,’ but it will only be shown to North Korea at five-nation talks,” a senior Japanese official said today (Teruaki Ueno, Reuters, July 30).

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Iran:  Tehran Will Make Additional Protocol Decision After Experts Visit

Iranian officials will wait until after they meet with legal experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency before deciding if they will agree to the Additional Protocol, which would allow for intrusive monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear activities, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, July 29).

The experts are expected “in the next few days,” Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said.

“After these people come to Iran and we listen to their reason and justifications, then we will decide whether to sign the IAEA’s Additional Protocol,” he said.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming confirmed that the legal team is expected to travel to Tehran in the first week of August (Farhad Pouladi, Agence France-Presse, July 30).

Israel, meanwhile, is telling U.S. officials that Iran is increasing its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, Reuters reported.

“It must be made clear to these countries that their evil deeds cannot continue,” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at a press conference yesterday with U.S. President George W. Bush (Reuters/Planet Ark, July 30).

The United States, meanwhile, is pressuring Tokyo over potential Japanese involvement in oil field development in Iran, Kyodo News Service reported.  At energy talks between Washington and Tokyo, U.S. officials expressed concern over a proposed deal — in which a Japanese company would develop a large untapped Iranian oil field — at a time when Iran is under pressure to sign the Additional Protocol (Kyodo News Service/BBC Monitoring, July 30).

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United States I:  NNSA Shuts Down Nuclear Weapons Advisory Committee

The U.S. Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration has decided to shut down an official advisory committee formed to evaluate the agency’s efforts to research new nuclear weapons, Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, July 17).

U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) yesterday announced the decision to end the committee and criticized the NNSA for not announcing the move itself.  He indicated that the NNSA’s decision to shut down the committee was an attempt by the Bush administration to prevent oversight of White House plans to create new types of nuclear weapons, according to Energy Daily.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Markey said he was “uncomfortable” with the decision to end the committee.  The move leaves only the Nuclear Weapons Council, made up of active officials from the military, Energy and the Defense Department, responsible for reviewing U.S. nuclear weapons policy, he said.

“This complex and important mission demands outside guidance unbiased by institutional preconceptions and preferences,” Markey said.

NNSA officials did not respond to requests for comment, Energy Daily reported (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, July 30).

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United States II:  Y-12 Plant Operator Releases Results of Investigation Into Fire

The operator of the U.S. Energy Department’s Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., said yesterday that a mixture of calcium, water and depleted uranium was responsible for an April 15 fire at the plant, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, May 22).

The mixture created steam and heat during an experiment conducted in a sealed glove box, which resulted in excess pressure and caused an explosion, plant operator BWXT said.  The explosion allowed air to enter the glove box, which resulted in the uranium spontaneously igniting, the company said (Associated Press, July 30).

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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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