NEWS BRIEFS
Administration Launches CTBT Effort
CD Ends First Part of 2000 Session
Ukraine Ratifies Open Skies Treaty
U.S., Japan Establish Arms Control Working Group
Israeli Air Force Takes Command of Arrow System
Russia Pledges CFE Compliance
Netherlands to Help Russia With Fissile Material
Administration Launches CTBT Effort
On March 13, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and retired General John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, formally launched the Clinton administration's renewed push for U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Shalikashvili's appointment to head the administration's task force on the test ban was announced in late January. (See ACT, January/February 2000.)
Shalikashvili will serve as special adviser to the president and the secretary of state on the test ban. According to Albright, Shalikashvili "will meet with senators and others to hear their concerns and suggestions, help clear up misconceptions about the treaty, and recommend steps the administration might take to gain a favorable Senate vote." He will be supported by former Ambassador James Goodby and by John Holum, senior adviser for arms control and international security.
At the State Department press briefing announcing the new effort, Shalikashvili emphasized that the administration was not planning to resubmit the treaty during the remainder of President Clinton's term. According to Shalikashvili, the current effort is an attempt to "lay the groundwork for eventual ratification" of the treaty and to reassure other signatories about U.S. intentions regarding the treaty.
For example, China, which was sharply critical of the U.S. Senate's rejection of the treaty, is not expected to ratify the CTBT before the United States does. China reportedly submitted the CTBT to the National People's Congress for approval prior to the legislature's first full annual meeting on March 5, but there have been no indications that the body has acted on the treaty to date.
The CTBT has continued to pick up ratifications. Bangladesh ratified the treaty March 8, shortly before Clinton's visit to South Asia, and Macedonia ratified the treaty March 14. Lithuania and Turkey have also ratified the treaty in recent months. The CTBT has now been signed by 155 countries and ratified by 55. Of the 44 states required to ratify the treaty before it can enter into force, 28 have done so.
CD Ends First Part of 2000 Session
The UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) concluded the first part of its 2000 negotiating session March 23 without a work program agreement, thereby preventing any negotiations from starting. Germany, on behalf of 22 members, including the United States, tried to break the CD deadlock with a work program proposal on the final day, but failed.
The 66-member conference, which operates by consensus, has not conducted any substantive negotiations since completing the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and has not agreed on a work program for two of the last three years. The current impediment to a work program agreement is a dispute between the United States and China over negotiating priorities. Beijing wants formal negotiations on the prevention of an arms race in outer space, while Washington wants to renew negotiations, agreed to in both 1995 and 1998, on a fissile material cutoff treaty.
The German proposal called for establishing ad hoc committees—the CD subsidiary body for negotiations—on a cutoff treaty and negative security assurances, as well as for appointing special coordinators to head consultations on anti-personnel landmines, transparency in armaments, review of the conference agenda, expansion of CD membership, and improvement of the conference's functioning. On nuclear disarmament and outer space, Germany proposed continuing talks to agree on the appropriate way to deal with these issues. Though countries in addition to the 22 associated with the statement voiced support for the German proposal, it failed to elicit the necessary consensus for action. The conference will start the second of three parts of its 2000 negotiating session May 22.
Ukraine Ratifies Open Skies Treaty
After three failed attempts to do so in past years, Ukraine ratified the 1992 Open Skies Treaty on March 2. Of the 27 treaty signatories, only Russia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan have yet to ratify the treaty, which will permit states-parties to conduct unarmed observation flights over the entire territories of other treaty members. The treaty will not enter into force until Russia and Belarus ratify the accord because it requires all signatories with passive quotas—the number of flights a country is obligated to permit over its territory each year—of eight or more to ratify the treaty before it can enter into force. A country's quota is loosely scaled to the size of its territory.
Washington is raising Open Skies ratification with Moscow, but Russian ratification of START II and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty are higher priorities for both states. Until entry into force, the treaty is in provisional application with several states, including Russia, conducting trial flights. The United States has participated in 51 trial missions since 1993.
U.S., Japan Establish Arms Control Working Group
The United States and Japan recently announced a joint working group on a wide range of issues related to non-proliferation and arms control. In a joint statement released in Tokyo March 8, John Holum, senior adviser for arms control and international security, and Norio Hattori, director-general for arms control and scientific affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, announced the creation of the U.S.-Japan Commission on Arms Control, Disarmament, Nonproliferation and Verification.
The commission will meet every six months to discuss progress toward and offer direction on a wide range of non-proliferation goals, including strengthening the non-proliferation regime, encouraging early entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), establishing a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention, and generating movement toward negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty in the UN Conference on Disarmament. Immediate priorities include the CTBT and ensuring the success of the upcoming nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference.
The commission intends to capitalize on shared interests between the United States and Japan to move beyond consultation on non-proliferation issues to actual cooperation. While there will not be permanent commissioners, each government will commit officials with appropriate expertise to each cooperative enterprise.
The first act of the commission, which first met in early March, was to establish the Technology Cooperation Working Group, which will focus on the use of technology for arms control verification. The working group's first project will be to improve the CTBT's International Monitoring System. Detailed work plans are set to be completed mid-April, when funding and implementation schedules will be discussed. The next meeting of the full commission has not yet been scheduled.
Israeli Air Force Takes Command of Arrow System The Israeli air force took operational command of the first of three planned Arrow-2 missile batteries in a March 14 ceremony. Though additional personnel training is required in order for this battery of the anti-ballistic missile system to reach an initial operational capability in a few months, the commander of the Israeli air force, Major General Eitan Ben-Eliahu, told reporters at the ceremony that the battery could be operational in a few days in an emergency. Israel launched its missile defense program with U.S. cooperation in 1986 and initiated the Arrow program two years later.
Program costs through 2005 are expected to be approximately $1.6 billion—supported by some $600 million in direct U.S. funding—with costs to reportedly total $2.2 billion by 2010. Last fall, the U.S. Congress approved an additional $45 million for deployment of a third battery to help Israel provide a better defense against what Israel views as a growing threat posed by Iran's ballistic missile programs, specifically the development of the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 missiles.
Russia Pledges CFE Compliance Russian Acting President Vladimir Putin told reporters March 20 that Russia would "gradually" comply with Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty limits capping the tanks, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), and artillery that Russia can deploy in its flank regions, which encompass the northern and southern regions of Russia that border Europe. Moscow's military offensive in Chechnya has magnified Russia's non-compliance with revised flank limits that entered into force May 31, 1999, though Russia remains in compliance with overall treaty limits.
Putin's statement reaffirms a March 3 Russian statement at the Vienna-based Joint Consultative Group (JCG), the treaty's implementing body, that Moscow would meet flank limits of 1,300 tanks, 2,140 ACVs, and 1,680 artillery as the situation in Chechnya stabilizes. These weapons levels represent the more lenient limits set forth in a November 1999 CFE Treaty adaptation agreement, rather than the existing flank limits. None of the 30 CFE states-parties has ratified the adaptation agreement, which replaces the Cold War-era treaty's bloc and zone limits with national and territorial ceilings.
Last fall, President Clinton said he would submit the agreement to the Senate only after Russia complies with adapted treaty limits. NATO, in a December 1999 statement, cautioned that entry into force of an adapted treaty "can only be envisaged in the context of compliance by all States Parties with the Treaty's limitations."
No official adapted treaty text exists, but a U.S. official said producing one was on the JCG agenda. The official would not comment further. Russia's offensive in Chechnya, as well as Moscow's pledges to withdraw weaponry from Moldova and Georgia, have been the main topics of JCG discussion this year.
Netherlands to Help Russia With Fissile Material Under an agreement signed March 14, the Dutch government will assist Russia with safely transporting and storing fissile material from its dismantled nuclear weapons and submarines. The agreement, negotiated during the past year and signed in Moscow by Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov and Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Jozias van Aartsen, commits the Netherlands to providing initial funding of almost $3 million for the initiative. According to Annemieke Ruigrok, first secretary in the Political Section of the Dutch Embassy in Washington, "This is a framework agreement…. We still have to discuss with the Russians the concrete projects this money will go to."
The agreement, which represents the first joint Dutch-Russian effort to address the proliferation threat posed by the Russian nuclear arsenal and fleet, outlines two specific projects that could be pursued. One involves building inserts for containers used to store fissile material from dismantled nuclear weapons and would likely be implemented in conjunction with ongoing U.S. fissile material storage efforts at Mayak. The second option is to manufacture metal-concrete containers for the transportation and storage of spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned nuclear submarines and would probably be pursued alongside cooperation that exists between Russia and Norway in this area.
According to a Russian Atomic Energy Ministry spokesperson, long-term cooperation with the Netherlands on nuclear disarmament will extend beyond the two projects now being considered. If the currently planned cooperation is successful, additional funds would likely be available for further joint projects, Ruigrok indicated.
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