Digests and Blog

U.S.-Russian Arms Control Working Groups Meet Delegations representing the United States and Russia met in Vienna from July 27-30 for four days of talks on space security and nuclear arms control amid the Trump administration’s continued push for an unprecedented new trilateral arms control deal and uncertainty about the fate of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The four days of meetings marked the most sustained period of dialogue on arms control issues between professional experts from the two sides since the Trump administration took office. But few details have…

The U.S. atomic bomb attack on the people of Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, and the second attack on the city of Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. on August 9 killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting men, women, and children in a horrible blast of fire and radiation, followed by deadly fallout. “We are badly off course in efforts to honor the plea of the hibakusha—the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings—and end the nuclear threat." Kazumi Matsui Mayor of Hiroshima The atomic bomb survivors—the hibakusha—have served as the conscience of the global disarmament…

An explosion at Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility appears to have been a deliberate attack that will set back the country’s ability to manufacture centrifuges. Speaking at a news conference July 6, Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), confirmed that the July 2 explosion occurred in a building at Natanz where Iran produces advanced centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium. The explosion did not impact the area of the facility where uranium enrichment takes place and the International Atomic Energy Agency said July 3 that its application…

A July 9 decision by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) Executive Council demands that the Syrian Arab Republic cease all use of chemical weapons and come clean on its illegal arsenal. The decision marks the international watchdog’s most punitive response to Syria’s chemical weapons program since reports of chemical attacks first re-surfaced in 2014 and is a necessary step to address Damascus’s blatant violation of international law. Horrific chemical weapons attacks have continued on an irregular basis throughout the country’s ongoing civil war, despite the…

U.S. Continues Stalling on New START The United States and Russia concluded the latest round of their strategic security dialogue June 22 without agreeing to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining arms control agreement limiting their nuclear arsenals. The United States is “leaving all options available” on the future of the treaty, said Special Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea, who led the U.S. delegation at the talks in Vienna, during a June 24 briefing in Brussels. “We are willing to contemplate an extension of that agreement but…

A new report authored by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres details evidence of Iran’s likely violation of the arms-related and ballistic missile transfer-related provisions of Security Council resolution 2231 (2015). Resolution 2231 endorses and helps implement the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the United States withdrew from in May 2018, and modifies UN sanctions on Iran. As the Trump Administration bids to strengthen its maximum pressure campaign against Iran, it will likely use the Secretary-General’s report as…

Our nation and the world face a daunting array of challenges: a global pandemic; deepening economic hardship and inequity; a lack of cooperation and growing tensions between the world’s major powers; and ongoing deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police that underscore the systemic racism that continues to plague our society. Surely, this is not the time to continue to abandon effective nuclear arms control agreements, like the Open Skies Treaty, and ignite a new arms race with Russia and China—let alone to begin testing nuclear weapons again. Yet that is what senior officials at…

IAEA Board Passes Resolution on Iran The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors passed a resolution calling on Tehran to fully cooperate with the agency’s investigation into possible undeclared nuclear materials and activities from the pre-2003 period. The resolution, drafted by the three European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), passed June 19 by a vote of 25-2, with 7 abstentions and one country not voting. The United States supported the resolution, whereas China and Russia, also party to the nuclear deal with Iran, voted…

North Korea Announces Plans to Boost Nuclear DeterrentNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over a May 24 meeting of the Seventh Central Military Committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea, who discussed national efforts to bolster the country’s armed forces, including “new policies for further increasing the nuclear war deterrence of the country and putting the strategic armed forces on high alert.” According to a statement released that day by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), officials worked to refine a strategy to “reliably contain the persistent big or small military…

In a June 5 report on Iran’s safeguards agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) provided additional detail about the agency's investigation into possible undeclared nuclear materials and activities tied to Iran's past nuclear weapons development efforts and noted that Tehran has yet to comply with the agency’s requests for information and access. Given the information provided in the report, it appears likely that Iran violated its safeguards obligations by storing nuclear materials from its pre-2003 illict weaponization work at locations that were not declared to the IAEA…