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“Your association has taken a significant role in fostering public awareness of nuclear disarmament and has led to its advancement.”
– Kazi Matsui
Mayor of Hiroshima
June 2, 2022
October 2011
Edition Date: 
Saturday, October 1, 2011
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IAEA to Detail Iran's Alleged Warhead Work

Peter Crail

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano told the agency’s governing board Sept. 12 that he would soon “set out in greater detail” the basis for IAEA concerns regarding suspected Iranian work to develop a nuclear warhead. The IAEA has expressed frustration over the past three years that its efforts to investigate such suspicions have been stonewalled by Iran, which maintains that charges of warhead development are “baseless and false.”

A Sept. 2 IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program said that the agency was “increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities…including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” The report said that the agency continues to receive new information regarding such activities from “many member states” and from its own investigation and that such information is “broadly consistent and credible in terms of technical detail, the time frame in which these activities were conducted and the people and organisations involved.”

For the past several months, the United States has called on Amano to provide his “best assessment” of the evidence of Iran’s suspected warhead development work. (See ACT, July/August 2011.) In a Sept. 14 statement to the board, U.S. Permanent Representative to the IAEA Glyn Davies said the only way for Iran to resolve the issues is through Tehran’s “complete, immediate, and expansive cooperation.”

In June, Amano provided such an assessment of suspicions that Syria was building an undeclared nuclear reactor in support of a nuclear weapons program, a judgment that resulted in the IAEA board’s referral of Syria to the UN Security Council for further action. (See ACT, July/August 2011.) Many countries serving on the board, however, questioned the legitimacy of the referral.

Former IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen told an Atlantic Council audience Sept. 15 that it would be “groundbreaking” if Amano made such an assessment of Iran. Heinonen noted the challenges of piecing together many of the weapons-related activities Iran is believed to have pursued and drawing a clear conclusion. “We just see symptoms which are worrisome,” he said, rather than a Manhattan Project-style effort in which “the entire program is laid out in front of you in a project chart.”

He also said that, for Amano to make a judgment about Iran’s suspected weaponization efforts, he would also need to determine whether the work is part of a program dedicated to building a nuclear weapon or is an effort to slowly collect all of the expertise and technical base to build a nuclear weapon if the decision were made to do so.

According to Heinonen, the best way for the IAEA to get to the bottom of the nature of Iran’s suspected warhead work “would be to talk to the people who really know,” adding that “there may only be a handful of people who really know the goal of the program.”

The agency’s Sept. 2 report said that the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program were discussed by the agency and Iranian officials over the past several months, but it did not provide any further detail. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA, said in a Sept. 6 interview that Iran hoped that those discussions would continue (see page 8).

Centrifuges Installed at Fordow

The IAEA report also said that, for the first time, Iran has begun installing centrifuges at its Fordow uranium-enrichment plant, a facility that was first publicly revealed by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in 2009 and that Iran failed to declare to the IAEA until that year.

Last June, Iran announced that it would soon begin using the plant to produce uranium enriched to 20 percent uranium-235 to produce fuel for research reactors and that it would triple such production through the use of more-advanced centrifuge designs it has been developing. The Sept. 2 IAEA report said that as of Aug. 20, Iran had installed one of two centrifuge cascades designated for the production of 20 percent-enriched uranium. A cascade is a series of interlinked centrifuges.

Although the report did not specify the type of machine being installed, diplomatic sources confirmed that the centrifuges are IR-1 machines, a crash-prone design Iran currently uses at its commercial-scale Natanz enrichment plant. The improved designs Iran has been developing, called the IR-2m and IR-4, are believed to enrich uranium three times faster than the IR-1.

The advanced designs Iran intended to install at the Fordow plant appear to be in the final stages of testing and development. Iran told the IAEA in January that it would install two 164-centrifuge cascades at its Natanz pilot plant, one for each of the new centrifuge designs. (See ACT, March 2011.) The recent IAEA report said that such installation remained ongoing as of late August, with roughly half of the machines installed. Iran has been testing smaller cascades of the newer designs for some time, but it is not known to have operated a full set of machines.

Centrifuges enrich uranium by spinning at high speeds to increase the concentration of the fissile isotope U-235 in a uranium-based gas. Most nuclear power reactors run on uranium enriched to about 4 percent U-235 while weapons-grade levels are generally around 90 percent. Davies said in his Sept. 14 statement that “it is important to keep in mind that production of near-20 percent [enriched uranium] completes 90 percent of the work necessary for production of highly enriched uranium,” used for weapons. He added that should Iran decide to use its stockpile of 20 percent-enriched material to produce weapons-grade uranium quickly, IAEA safeguards might provide “some warning...but that will come too late.”

Iran says that it is producing uranium enriched to 20 percent U-235 both for its Tehran Research Reactor, which is running short of fuel, and for additional research reactors it would like to build. In the Sept. 6 interview, Soltanieh said the medical isotopes produced in these reactors would not only be used for domestic demand, but also would be exported to other countries in the region. The IAEA has sought clarification of Iran’s plans to construct additional reactors, but Iran has not been forthcoming. Iran is also not believed to be capable of safely producing fuel for the Tehran reactor. The recent IAEA report said that as of Aug. 10, Iran had not yet installed equipment to fabricate the reactor fuel but had produced a fuel rod that would be shipped to the reactor for testing.

In 2009, Iran agreed “in principle” to a U.S.-initiated plan under which Iran would ship out most of its 4 percent-enriched uranium in return for fuel for the Tehran reactor, but rejected it shortly thereafter. The two sides have since been at odds over details of the proposal. The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Director Fereydoun Abbasi Aug. 29 as saying that Iran would no longer negotiate over the so-called fuel-swap, stating, “The United States is not a safe country with which we can negotiate a fuel swap or any other issue.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, contradicted this stand in a Sept. 13 Washington Post interview, stating that Iran’s production of 20 percent-enriched uranium would be halted if it received fuel for the reactor.

Iran’s decision to produce 20 percent-enriched uranium at its Fordow plant is the second time that Tehran has formally revised its intentions for the facility, which Iran originally claimed was a pilot plant that would carry out research and development (R&D) and enrich uranium to up to 5 percent U-235.

Western governments have charged that the facility was constructed as part of a weapons program, declaring it “inconsistent with a peaceful program.” (See ACT, October 2009.) Since the facility was first revealed in 2009, the IAEA has asked Iran to provide information that would allow the agency to clarify details regarding its construction, including its original purpose, its timing, and the decision to build the facility on an existing military site. The Sept. 2 IAEA report said that Iran has provided some information since the agency’s last report in May but that additional information is still needed.

Iran also appears to have postponed a 2009 decision to construct 10 additional uranium-enrichment plants. In the Aug. 29 article, IRNA quoted Abbasi as saying that Iran would not need such facilities for the next two years. Iran announced last year that studies on the location of the 10 new sites had been completed and that construction of the first such site would begin early this year. Soltanieh said in the interview that this was an “updated decision” determined on the basis of “the political environment of the whole world and also the technical requirements.”

IAEA Visits Centrifuge Workshop

Prior to the week-long IAEA board meeting, Iran allowed agency safeguards chief Herman Nackaerts access to additional facilities that the IAEA has not been able to visit on a regular basis, including an R&D facility for its improved centrifuges and the site of a heavy-water plant and a heavy-water reactor under construction at Arak. IAEA officials welcomed this development, and Amano told the agency’s board Sept. 12, “Iran demonstrated greater transparency than on previous occasions.” It was the first time the agency has been able to inspect the heavy-water production facility since 2005.

Iranian officials have described such access as a significant level of transparency. In the Sept. 6 interview, Soltanieh said that, by allowing access to the centrifuge R&D workshops, Iran was doing something “unprecedented in the history of the IAEA.”

Heinonen, however, in his Atlantic Council comments said the additional access Iran provided did not qualify as a major improvement in transparency. Referring to the IAEA’s access to the centrifuge R&D site, he said, “This kind of workshop visit is a very limited addition to what you need to know,” stressing that visiting the facility is not enough and that measures such as discussions with technicians are needed to get a full accounting of the role such facilities play in Iran’s nuclear program.

Heinonen also noted that Iran is already legally obligated to allow inspections of the other sites Iran allowed Nackaerts to visit.

Western governments have expressed concern that the Arak heavy-water reactor is far better suited for plutonium production for nuclear weapons than for the production of medical isotopes Iran claims the plant is intended to make.

According to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), Abbasi said Sept. 5 that Iran was prepared to allow the IAEA “full supervision” over its nuclear activities for a period of time if sanctions were removed. “We have proposed that the agency keep Iran’s activities and nuclear program under full supervision for five years, providing the sanctions are lifted,” ISNA quoted him as saying. Abbasi indicated, however, that such supervision would not include implementing an additional protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which provides the agency with more extensive access to all nuclear-related facilities. Soltanieh said in the interview that Iran demonstrated such “full transparency” during the visit by Nackaerts. “If you say, which one first, which one next, we have already taken this step.” He added, “Now it is their turn” to take action by lifting sanctions.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano told the agency’s governing board Sept. 12 that he would soon “set out in greater detail” the basis for IAEA concerns regarding suspected Iranian work to develop a nuclear warhead. The IAEA has expressed frustration over the past three years that its efforts to investigate such suspicions have been stonewalled by Iran, which maintains that charges of warhead development are “baseless and false.”

GAO Finds Gaps in U.S. Nuclear Tracking

Kelsey Davenport

U.S. agencies are not able to verify the location and physical security of U.S.-obligated nuclear materials overseas, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released last month. The document, a summary of the classified report issued to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in June, recommended that Congress consider requiring the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to “complete a full accounting of U.S. weapons-usable nuclear materials [in other countries].”

The Energy Department, NRC, and Department of State disagreed with the GAO recommendations. In responses included in the report, all three agencies said that comprehensive tracking of U.S. nuclear material overseas is unwarranted and impractical. According to the statement from the Energy Department, “[International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection, surveillance, and reporting processes serve as an effective, internationally sanctioned and U.S.-supported tracking and accounting mechanism.”

The report also said Congress should consider amending the Atomic Energy Act to require greater access rights under future nuclear cooperation agreements for U.S. agencies to verify physical protection of U.S.-obligated nuclear materials.

The NRC responded by stating that the report “does not give sufficient weight to foreign sovereign responsibilities for ensuring physical protection” and that the review process conducted prior to negotiating nuclear cooperation agreements adequately assesses physical protection and safeguards.

U.S. agencies are not able to verify the location and physical security of U.S.-obligated nuclear materials overseas, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released last month. The document, a summary of the classified report issued to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in June, recommended that Congress consider requiring the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to “complete a full accounting of U.S. weapons-usable nuclear materials [in other countries].”

IAEA to Discuss Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones

Daniel Horner

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Sept. 2 that it would host a forum Nov. 21-22 to discuss the experiences of existing nuclear-weapon-free zones and how they “could be relevant to the Middle East.”

The forum would take place a year and a half after the parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) pledged at their 2010 review conference to hold a meeting in 2012 on creating a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East. (See ACT, June 2010.) In a statement during the Sept. 19-23 IAEA General Conference in Vienna, New Zealand said it saw the November forum as “an important building block” in working toward a Middle Eastern WMD-free zone.

Current and former officials from the Middle East and elsewhere have said the forum could be important as an informal precursor to the planned 2012 conference. However, the Sept. 2 announcement does not explicitly mention that conference. The IAEA event is officially called the Forum on Experience of Possible Relevance to the Creation of a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Sept. 2 that it would host a forum Nov. 21-22 to discuss the experiences of existing nuclear-weapon-free zones and how they “could be relevant to the Middle East.”

Support for Nuclear Weapons Funding Dips

Kelsey Davenport

Congressional backing for increased nuclear weapons spending that was evident after last year’s debate on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty appears to be cracking under the weight of federal budget deficits as a Senate subcommittee last month approved a spending bill that fell $400 million short of the Obama administration’s request for nuclear weapons funding.

In the Sept. 7 vote, the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee provided $7.2 billion for weapons activities for fiscal year 2012. The administration had requested more than $7.6 billion; the appropriations bill passed by the House in July provided $7.1 billion. The fiscal year 2011 appropriation was $6.9 billion.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Directed Stockpile Work, particularly the life extension program for the B61 gravity bomb, sustained one of the larger cuts in the subcommittee recommendations. In explaining the cut in that program, from $223 million to $180 million, the subcommittee focused on the NNSA’s plan to incorporate new safety features into the B61. The subcommittee said that “new safety and security features should be incorporated in weapons systems when feasible, but the primary goal of a life extension program should be to increase confidence in warhead performance without underground nuclear testing.” The House version of the bill allocated $279 million for the B61 life extension program, $55 million more than the NNSA budget request. According to the report accompanying the House bill, “The recommendation moves back funding requested under Campaigns which had been associated with the B61 in the fiscal year 2011 request.” Additionally, the report said that no more than 50 percent of the funding should be obligated until the NNSA meets certain reporting requirements.

Two other Directed Stockpile Work categories, stockpile services and stockpile systems, also received less than the administration requested while the NNSA request for weapons dismantlement was fully funded.

Fiscal year 2011 ended on Sept. 30, but Congress has not yet agreed on funding levels for most departments and agencies. The government is being funded with a short-term spending measure.

Congressional backing for increased nuclear weapons spending that was evident after last year’s debate on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty appears to be cracking under the weight of federal budget deficits as a Senate subcommittee last month approved a spending bill that fell $400 million short of the Obama administration’s request for nuclear weapons funding.

Syria Pledges IAEA Cooperation Again

Peter Crail

Syria is ready to agree on a plan with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to address concerns about a site the agency determined was “very likely” a nuclear reactor, IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano told the agency’s governing board Sept. 12.

The IAEA Board of Governors referred Syria to the UN Security Council in June for noncompliance with its safeguards obligations following the agency’s assessment that Syria should have declared the alleged reactor to the IAEA. (See ACT, July/August 2011.) Israel destroyed the facility, located at a site called Dair al Zour, in 2007. (See ACT, October 2007.) Damascus has claimed the site was a non-nuclear military facility.

According to Amano, Syria said in an Aug. 24 letter that it was willing to meet with agency safeguards staff in October “to agree on an action plan to resolve the outstanding issues in regard to [the] Dair al Zour site.” He added that the IAEA responded with proposed meeting dates of Oct. 10-11. The agency’s latest report on Syria in May said that Damascus “has not engaged substantively” with the IAEA on the nature of the Dair al Zour facility since June 2008, when Syria allowed the only inspection of the site.

Syria similarly promised in May to cooperate fully with the agency’s investigation into its suspected illicit nuclear activities, prior to its referral to the council. Although Amano noted in his statement that the agency has held a number of meetings with Syria since that time, diplomatic sources said that Damascus had not provided the pledged cooperation.

In a Sept. 14 statement to the IAEA board, U.S. Permanent Representative to the IAEA Glyn Davies said, “We deeply regret that Syria has made no substantive effort to remedy its noncompliance” since the board action in June.

Syria is ready to agree on a plan with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to address concerns about a site the agency determined was “very likely” a nuclear reactor, IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano told the agency’s governing board Sept. 12.

The NSG in a Time of Change: An Interview With NSG Chairman Piet de Klerk

Piet de Klerk became the chairman of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in June and will hold that position until next June. In August, he became the Dutch ambassador to Jordan. Before that, he was deputy permanent representative of the Netherlands to the United Nations.

De Klerk spoke with Arms Control Today on September 2 by telephone from his office in Amman. In his first interview since assuming the chairmanship of the NSG, he spoke about the group’s June meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. At that meeting, the group agreed, after many years of debate, to revise its rules on exports relating to uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing. Other key topics discussed at the meeting were a proposed reactor sale from China to Pakistan and the process under which India could join the NSG. In the interview, de Klerk also laid out ideas for possible changes to the group, such as increasing transparency while maintaining an appropriate level of confidentiality.

The interview was transcribed by Xiaodon Liang. It has been edited for clarity.

ACT: Mr. Ambassador, congratulations on your chairmanship, and thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We’re glad to have this opportunity to talk to you about both the meeting in Noordwijk last June and your plans for the coming year as chairman of the NSG.

De Klerk: My pleasure.

ACT: First, could you briefly give your perspective on the role that the NSG serves in the global nonproliferation architecture today, some 35 years after it was established in the wake of India’s 1974 nuclear test explosion? What changes has the NSG made to remain relevant?

De Klerk: I think the role of the NSG is essentially the same as in the period that it was established. The context in which it was established was the Indian explosion and quite a number of intended nuclear deals that had to do with reprocessing and enrichment capabilities, and those did not always have clear commercial purposes. The suppliers, the original suppliers, came together and agreed to some form of restraint in the export of these sensitive technologies. And I think the main purpose of the NSG now is still close coordination among nuclear exporting countries, especially with a view to the export of sensitive nuclear technologies, so that you limit the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities, without hampering the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. While the nuclear landscape is very different from 35 years ago, I think the essential task of the NSG is still the same.

ACT: I’m thinking of historical events, the [Abdul Qadeer] Khan network and things like that. Have they caused some changes or reorientation in the group?

De Klerk: Yes. The NSG in more practical terms has traveled a long way. When the original export control list, the trigger list, was put together, it mentioned, for example, only plants as such for reprocessing or enrichment.[1] Over the years, in light of the number of developments like the one you mentioned, the trigger list and the dual-use list that was established in the early [19]90s have been made much more specific: What goods and materials are we looking for? In that sense, the export control regime has become much better, much improved.

ACT: At its most recent plenary meeting, on June 23-24, the NSG reached agreement on revisions of paragraphs 6 and 7 of the group’s guidelines, the paragraphs that cover transfers of equipment and technology for uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing [ENR].[2] The new guidelines ban ENR exports to states that have not signed or are not in compliance with the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT], do not allow comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] safeguards, or do not allow more extensive monitoring under the terms of an additional protocol, among other criteria. The old guidelines already called on suppliers to “exercise restraint,” and very few such ENR transfers were taking place. Why were the revisions necessary, and what practical effect will they have?

De Klerk: As you say, there was always the provision that, when it comes to sensitive nuclear technologies, suppliers should “exercise restraint.” Now, suppliers were a bit uneasy, because “restraint” was not a very clearly defined term, and in practice many interpreted it as a ban. [There was a] desire to say much more precisely what we mean by “restraint” so that you can, in cases where there are legitimate needs for enrichment or reprocessing plants, have rules for when to export and when not. After a couple of years, we reached agreement in Noordwijk. I’m very glad that we managed that; it happened on my watch, in Noordwijk, but the heavy lifting was done by my predecessor Jennifer Macmillan [of New Zealand] and the chair of our consultative group Rich Goorevich [of the United States]. If you ask what practical effect it will have, I don’t think it will have much immediate effect. But it will certainly have a stimulating effect on prospective buyers to become party to the additional protocol. It may also stimulate more multinational cooperation. More generally, if countries want to go that route, they now have a series of conditions that they need to satisfy, both in the nonproliferation area as well as with regard to safety and security. So it creates clarity for such countries.

ACT: The NSG has been discussing that revision since 2004. What adjustments to the final language were necessary to produce NSG-wide agreement?

De Klerk: Well, I can’t be too specific about it. I think it’s not wise for me to go into who said what at meetings, but clearly that part on how to formulate the additional protocol as a condition for supply was one of the issues that remained on the table toward the end. I think we found very good language that says “thou shall have” an additional protocol, or pending that, you should be party to a regional accounting and control system. Those two things leave the door ajar for a few countries and only for a limited period of time. So essentially, I think we have formulated that the additional protocol is the norm when it comes to the export of sensitive facilities and equipment and technology.

ACT: I actually wanted to focus on that question of the additional protocol because, as you said, the new guidelines make an additional protocol a condition of supply but make an exception for regional arrangements such as the one Argentina and Brazil have with ABACC [Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials]. Does that set a precedent for other regional arrangements that might not provide the same level of assurance as an additional protocol?

De Klerk: There is, as you said, one such regional accounting and control arrangement that qualifies, and I don’t think the text opens the door for more.

ACT: In other words, you don’t think there will be future similar arrangements, like the Argentine-Brazilian one?

De Klerk: That is what I think is formulated here.

ACT: You mentioned in your earlier responses that language, “pending [the adoption of an additional protocol].”  Do you have indications from the countries involved, the key countries—that is, Argentina and Brazil—that they see it the same way, that they are considering making some sort of movement toward the additional protocol? As you probably know, the Brazilian comments since then and before then have indicated that they do not see it as a requirement, that the additional protocol is strictly a voluntary commitment, it is not required by the NPT, and so on. Do you have some indication that there actually is some discussion on that issue and some movement in that direction by the key countries?

De Klerk: I think, for a number of countries, they look at the additional protocol and additional safeguards obligations very much through the prism of the dichotomy between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states. I cannot speak for the countries concerned. I’ve read certain statements since, but I have no comments, and I think this “pending” formulation is a fair solution to this issue that we had.

ACT: Since the new NSG ENR guidelines were announced, there has been considerable discussion, particularly in the Indian press right after the meeting, about the newly adopted criteria and how they do or do not affect the NSG’s 2008 India-specific exemption from some NSG guidelines. Some U.S. and European officials have said the new ENR guidelines do apply to India and that the 2008 NSG decision on India exempted India from the requirement for comprehensive safeguards but not NSG policies on ENR transfers. As the current NSG chairman, what is your view?

De Klerk: I indeed also read quite a lot of articles in the Indian press in the wake of the Noordwijk meeting, but as you just said, these discussions on ENR started already well before 2008. The text of the Indian exception at the time said you get your exception for full-scope safeguards provided that you satisfy all other guidelines. In particular, [the text] also explicitly mentioned paragraphs 6 and 7. Being party to the NPT was always a condition; it cannot have been a surprise to the Indians that this was the outcome. I am under the impression that that was made clear at the time to the Indians.

ACT: It was made clear at the time of the 2008 exception?

De Klerk: Yes, that’s right. There has never been any other proposal on the table than that being party to the NPT is one of the conditions.

ACT: At the Noordwijk meeting, the NSG member states reportedly discussed the recent U.S. “thought paper” on the subject of a process for Indian membership in the NSG. What views and concerns were expressed at the Noordwijk meeting on that issue?

De Klerk: This is another example where I will not be very specific because saying who said what at what point in time, I think, is not appropriate for the chairman. But clearly we made a start, not even discussing an Indian membership as such, but a preliminary exchange of views on what such a discussion would entail. You can basically look at it from two angles: One is that you say India is India, India is important, and India has a good export control record, so that it would score rather high on many of the factors that we take into account when we discuss membership. Or, you can say, “Wait a minute; it doesn’t score high on all the factors that we take into account, because it is not a party to the NPT or something equivalent.” So these are the two ways of looking at it, and we discussed that. Many rather fundamental points were made because it’s clear if you discuss such membership, you move into a new paradigm, so to speak. At present, all participating governments are NPT members, and India would not come in—if it ever would come in—in all likelihood as an NPT member.

ACT: Given that India already has pledged to follow the NSG’s voluntary export control guidelines, how will the NSG’s core mission be advanced by adding India as a member? Would Indian membership complicate the NSG’s ability to revisit the India-specific exemption if India were to break any of the nonproliferation pledges it has made in the context of that decision?

De Klerk: As a group of nuclear exporters, you want to have clout. You want to be a bloc that has influence on what the rules of the road are, and if you bring countries, important countries, and potential exporters like India on board, it would be good for the clout that the group has. On the other hand, as I said before, in some ways India is a different animal in our zoo, and that would complicate the discussions in the group. So there are pros and cons, and every participating government needs to draw its own conclusion there. But as there is no request for membership, we didn’t have any operational discussion on India’s membership. There was a preliminary exchange and not even in [the] plenary [session].

ACT: Do you think this is an issue that will be resolved anytime soon, perhaps during the Dutch chairmanship?

De Klerk: I think it is more likely that it will take more time. I look at this as a matter of a couple of years.

ACT: China is proposing to sell two additional nuclear power reactors to Pakistan although, under the NSG guidelines, Pakistan is not eligible to receive nuclear exports from NSG members because it is not an NPT party and does not open all its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspections. China has been asked to provide more information on the proposed deal. Did it provide any new information to the rest of the NSG at the Noordwijk meeting?

De Klerk: It provided some more specificity, yes; and without going into detail, it now said specifically that, in its view, in China’s view, these exports are part of the agreement that China had with Pakistan before [China] became a member of the NSG. The “grandfather” argument was now made explicitly.

ACT: My recollection from talking to people about it was that when China entered, there was a discussion and a fairly specific agreement as to these facilities, [saying that certain facilities] are grandfathered: there’s a list and things on this list were grandfathered; nothing beyond this list would be grandfathered; and these reactors were not on the list.[3] Is that not the case? What was the context of the discussion about the grandfathering?

De Klerk: I have no comments on whether there is, or who has seen, such a list. I haven’t.

ACT: If China and Pakistan go ahead with the deal, what are the NSG’s options?

De Klerk: We didn’t discuss options. I’m not in a position to speculate on that.

ACT: On its face, the deal would not comply with the NSG guidelines, but because the NSG is a voluntary group, there is a limit to what it can do to affect decisions of its individual members. If the deal were to go forward, how would the NSG respond, and what could it do to salvage something from it or to prevent such deals from taking place in the future?

De Klerk: The words “not comply” are yours; I haven’t said that in any way. Clearly, when a state that has ongoing nuclear cooperation agreements wants to become a member, you end up with sometimes murky situations. But if your question is whether there are lessons to be learned from this situation for the future, I think the lesson is that the more clarity you can get on what is ongoing at the time a country becomes a member, the better, because that would prevent the sort of situation we are in now with regard to China and Pakistan.

ACT: So it was an issue of clarity of what was ongoing at the time?

De Klerk: I think so, yes.

ACT: At the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in March, one of your colleagues [Henk Cor van der Kwast] listed some items on your agenda for your chairmanship.[4] One of them was outreach to nonmembers, possibly with “different types of outreach to different countries,” as he put it. Can you say what that would involve?

De Klerk: Clearly, to clarify the purpose and the structure and the history of the NSG to others and to try to convince other countries to adopt similar export policies is of great importance to us. That’s why we have this outreach program. Indeed, I was there too in March at Carnegie, and I heard my colleague mention what we had in mind. We are working on an outreach paper to be adopted by the full NSG somewhere in the coming year. There are a number of countries that we want to talk to on a regular basis. What our paper intends is to make a number of categories of states that would be good countries to talk to for different reasons—as potential suppliers, as transit countries, what have you. That’s one step. The other step is that it might be good to do outreach also to other categories of industry and maybe other organizations, civil society. Those are our plans; we’re working on that. As such, a paper has not been agreed upon, and I can’t be very specific yet on what our future outreach policy will be.

ACT: You also mentioned outreach to organizations in civil society. Could you say a little bit more about that?

De Klerk: I don’t think I should go into any detail because this might be controversial. It’s the Netherlands’ view at this point that doing outreach more broadly is useful to dispel misunderstandings, to clarify what we are, what we are not. How broad that circle will be in the future, different states will probably have different views, so I don’t know where we will draw a line in the sand in the future.

ACT: This ties into one of the other issues that your colleague mentioned, which was the effort to increase the transparency of the NSG process. Do you have specific ideas about how to adjust the group’s current policy of keeping its deliberations strictly confidential and to try to provide more information and in a more timely way about NSG discussions and decisions?

De Klerk: It’s clear there is a tension between transparency on the one hand and confidentiality on the other. We have formulated a number of guidelines about communication and stronger relationships with different stakeholders, be it media, be it civil society. This interview is part of that thinking. But how far you can go in discussing sensitive issues like the Chinese supplies and whether India should become a member remains to be seen. You can’t be too specific about debates that are still under way and are not finished yet. Within those boundaries, we will try to improve our transparency. Even before our chairmanship started, in the run-up, we organized, together with the Carnegie Endowment, a few meetings, one open for think tanks and academics in Brussels where we had some fundamental debate on key issues surrounding the NSG. I, for one, thought it was a very stimulating debate. If we could have more of such interactions, that would be good, in our view. We have not-yet-very-specific plans of doing something similar in the spring, but we need to formulate that more precisely before I can say anything about that.

ACT: You mean [interactions between] civil society on one side and governments who are part of the NSG on the other?

De Klerk: Right. Some osmosis from the inside to the outside and vice versa would be good. It might be of value for the group.

ACT: Is this at this point strictly a Dutch proposal, or is it something you’ve already discussed more broadly within the NSG and so on?

De Klerk: What has been discussed within the NSG in the last couple of years is a transparency policy. We have a number of guidelines that speak to transparency. What is still largely a Dutch matter is how we will implement that during the rest of our chairmanship.

ACT: You also mentioned media. Is there consideration of being more forthcoming? For example, the statements after the NSG meetings—sometimes there is no public statement at all and when there is, it tends to be very general. Is there some discussion of perhaps having a little more detail in the statements or making the chairman available to the press or something like that after NSG meetings or at other times? Certainly, you’re doing that now. But is that a more general approach for the future?

De Klerk: Perhaps. We all agree that transparency is something positive, but at the same time, there are all sorts of limitations that one or more participating governments don’t want to be too specific on this issue or that. While the chair can encourage [others] to make our public statements longer and more specific, how such future sessions will turn out I can’t predict.

ACT: Updating the NSG’s lists of controlled exports is another item that has been mentioned as a priority for the coming year. Why might that be necessary, and how do you plan to pursue this effort?

De Klerk: While you can say nuclear technology is a rather stable, mature technology, in some of the more specific areas, technology is changing, and it’s a constant struggle to formulate your control lists in such a way that you cover all the relevant equipment and all the relevant facilities. So what is under way is a thorough, comprehensive look at the different technology areas, which is an exercise also under Dutch chairmanship, by the way, but it’s separate from the annual chairmanship. It’s an exercise that will probably take a few years, but we have started that. The first results have been put on the table, but it’s still a work in progress.

ACT: Just to give us some context, how often does the NSG do this sort of revision? It’s been around for, as we said, about three decades. How often do you do these guidelines, and how long does it take to do each one?

De Klerk: There’s not really a regularity in these revisions. When you come to the conclusion that the formulations that we have in the control lists on the particular technology are deficient, then there is an impetus to close potential loopholes. Perhaps you can say that, on average, there are revisions every five years. But what is important is that the review that is going on now pertains both to the trigger list and the dual-use list and that it’s more comprehensive than we’ve had in quite a long time.

ACT: Is there anything else you would like to say about the developments at Noordwijk, your plans for the coming year, or anything else dealing with the NSG?

De Klerk: The main thing I would like to say is, coming back to the beginning of our conversation, that in an age of electronic traffic and the Internet, export control is a greater challenge than ever, given that we are witnessing what many call a nuclear renaissance. Whether that term is a bit too grandiose or not, it’s true that especially in Asia you see quite a take-off of nuclear energy. If you see Chinese plans for 200,000 megawatts by 2030; if you see India, 60,000 megawatts; South Korea, 43,000 megawatts—it’s an era of new expansion.

I think the NSG is as relevant as ever. The fact that our chairmanship has quite a number of areas where changes are under way, more than there have been in quite a number of years, I think that’s a reflection of the new phase that we’re entering. Clearly, when the danger is the spread of nuclear weapons, then it’s clear we have a challenge that we all should take very seriously. It’s clear that you will need to have tight export controls if you want to give nuclear power a chance without any concurrent spread of nuclear weapons capabilities.

ACT: Thank you very much for taking the time to do this.

De Klerk: My pleasure.

 

ENDNOTES

 

1. The NSG maintains two lists that are the basis for its guidelines. The first, often known as the “trigger list,” includes materials and technology designed specifically for nuclear use. The second covers dual-use goods, which are non-nuclear items with legitimate civilian applications that can also be used to develop weapons.

 

2. For the complete text of the revision and the rest of the guidelines, see International Atomic Energy Agency, “Communication Received From the Permanent Mission of the Netherlands Regarding Certain Member States’ Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment and Technology,” INFCIRC/254/Rev.10/Part 1, July 26, 2011, www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2011/infcirc254r10p1.pdf. See also Daniel Horner, “NSG Revises Rules on Sensitive Exports,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2011.

 

3. See Daniel Horner, “China, Pakistan Set Reactor Deal,” Arms Control Today, June 2010.

 

4. Henk Cor van der Kwast, remarks at “The Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, Washington, DC, March 29, 2011, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/The_Future_of_the_Nuclear_Suppliers_Group.pdf.

Piet de Klerk became the chairman of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in June and will hold that position until next June. In August, he became the Dutch ambassador to Jordan...

Chickens Talking With Ducks: The U.S.-Chinese Nuclear Dialogue

Gregory Kulacki

Talks between China and the United States on the countries’ respective nuclear weapons programs are going nowhere. Each side expresses frustration and disappointment with the other. The problem could be that the two sides are talking past each other, like chickens talking with ducks, as the Chinese say.

After more than a decade of discussion, the two parties cannot seem to move past the first item on their agenda: declaratory policy. U.S. security analysts and military planners discount China’s pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Their Chinese counterparts resent this derision of the nuclear taboo. Moreover, they see U.S. incredulity as a way to deflect attention from Chinese questions about why the United States is unwilling to provide the same assurance.[1]

The U.S. participants in these talks do not appear to respect anyone, from either country, who takes a no-first-use pledge seriously.[2] To them, the pledge is an expression of naïveté or mendacity. They suspect, therefore, that the Chinese individuals participating in bilateral talks either cannot or will not speak truthfully about China’s “actual” nuclear weapons policy.[3]

The Chinese participants do not understand U.S. suspicions. They mistakenly ascribe U.S. mistrust to a hegemonic arrogance that has led the United States to use nuclear threats as part of a broader U.S. policy intended to intimidate and contain China. It is difficult for Chinese analysts to appreciate why a country with overwhelming conventional military superiority is unable to make a basic confidence-building commitment that a much weaker China finds acceptable.

The U.S. response to this impasse is to search for a different set of Chinese interlocutors. U.S. security analysts and military planners scour Chinese military literature to look for kindred Chinese authors who view China’s commitment to a no-first-use policy as they do. Some U.S. analysts believe they located strong candidates in authors from the Second Artillery, the branch of the Chinese military that operates China’s land-based nuclear missile forces.[4] Obama administration officials responsible for the U.S.-Chinese nuclear dialogue are pressing to talk directly with the leadership of the Second Artillery in the belief that they will speak with a different and more authoritative voice than the officials sent previously by the Chinese government.[5]

However, the most authoritative Second Artillery source on China’s nuclear operations cited in U.S. publications—a classified textbook used to train China’s nuclear missile forces[6]—suggests U.S. analysts and administration officials are mistaken. The Second Artillery, like its civilian counterparts at the negotiating table, carries out its respective responsibilities under the assumption that China will continue for the foreseeable future to operate a small nuclear arsenal that is kept off alert and is to be launched only in retaliation after a nuclear attack. Contrary to the speculation of some U.S. analysts, there is no discernible departure from China’s declared nuclear policy in the classified operational procedures of the Second Artillery.

U.S. participants in the bilateral dialogue on nuclear weapons should accept that China’s nuclear weapons policy is fundamentally different from that of the United States and that the Chinese policy deserves U.S. attention and respect, despite understandable U.S. doubts about its viability. If the U.S. side would stop trying to choose whom China sends to the table, Chinese participants in the bilateral dialogue may come to see that U.S. doubts about Chinese nuclear weapons policy reflect legitimate differences in beliefs about what is necessary to prevent a nuclear war. Genuine mutual respect, which seems to be in short supply on both sides of the table, could break the impasse.

The Second Artillery’s Textbook

The Second Artillery is sometimes called China’s strategic rocket forces. Created in 1966 to operate China’s nuclear missiles, the Second Artillery added conventionally armed missiles in the late 1980s at the beginning of an accelerating conventional military buildup that continues today. The link between this conventional buildup and the Second Artillery’s role in imagined conventional conflicts precipitated discussions within the Second Artillery about fighting those conflicts under conditions of nuclear coercion.

The U.S. refusal to provide China with an assurance that the United States would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict with China weighed heavily on Second Artillery deliberations.[7] Language in the 2002 U.S. “Nuclear Posture Review Report” suggesting possible U.S. first use of nuclear weapons against China in a military conflict over Taiwan aggravated the Second Artillery’s anxieties about its ability to manage such a conflict successfully.[8]

As these developments unfolded, the Second Artillery prepared to publish updated new teaching and training materials for the officers and soldiers who operate China’s strategic rocket forces. A series of books entitled The Science of Operations, consisting of a general text and more specialized texts for each branch of the Chinese armed forces, was produced at the request of the Chinese leadership as part of a decades-old process to expand and standardize all professional military education and training.[9] A classified textbook that recently attracted the attention of U.S. analysts,[10] entitled The Science of Operations of the Second Artillery, was a product of this process.

Contrary to many U.S. analyses of open-source Chinese military publications, the authors of this classified textbook do not debate or call into question China’s current nuclear weapons policy. Moreover, the text repeatedly emphasizes that nuclear weapons policy is a political decision that lies with the Chinese leadership, not with the Second Artillery. As the title suggests, the textbook discusses how the Second Artillery will operate China’s nuclear weapons under the conditions set by China’s nuclear weapons policy as determined by the Chinese leadership, including China’s no-first-use commitment.

“Deterrence” Versus “Coercion”

The vocabulary of nuclear weapons policy was created and developed in the context of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. U.S. and Russian arms control negotiators and defense analysts continue to dominate its usage. Chinese arms controllers imported this foreign vocabulary to interact with their peers from abroad.

In 2006, after decades of interaction, U.S. and Chinese arms control experts realized they needed a mutually agreed-on bilingual glossary to help minimize misunderstandings created by “the never-simple translation of one language into the other” and “differing interpretations of terms.”[11] Over the course of 18 months, the two sides were able to reach agreement on approximately 1,000 terms related to nuclear security. Despite extensive efforts, they were unable to reach consensus on some key concepts.

The most important concept lacking a mutually acceptable definition in the glossary is “limited deterrence.” U.S. analysts who argue that the Second Artillery may pursue a different Chinese nuclear weapons policy claim it embraces a policy of limited deterrence as opposed to the policy of “minimal deterrence” supposedly articulated by the Chinese participants in bilateral discussions. The difference, according to U.S. analysts, centers on Chinese preparations to fight and win a nuclear war. Limited deterrence imagines pre-emptive or retaliatory nuclear strikes against enemy forces and victory on the battlefield using “counterforce” targeting. Minimal deterrence imagines retaliatory strikes against enemy population centers, the political leadership, or critical economic infrastructure, otherwise known as “countervalue” targeting.

The etymology of the term “limited deterrence” makes it especially difficult to discuss in a U.S.-Chinese dialogue. Limited deterrence is not part of the traditional vocabulary developed by U.S. and Soviet arms control experts. A member of the U.S. team for the glossary project discovered the term in Chinese military texts.[12] He developed an interpretation of Chinese nuclear weapons policy based on how he believed the term “limited deterrence” was used in these texts. The Chinese participants in the glossary project rejected limited deterrence as a definition of Chinese nuclear weapons policy. Although the term does appear in some Chinese military texts, the Chinese participants informed their U.S. counterparts that it was not authoritative and that the U.S. definition of the term did not accurately describe Chinese nuclear weapons policy.

The assimilation of foreign vocabulary on arms control and nuclear weapons policy by Chinese civilian analysts, officials, and negotiators occurred at the same time the Second Artillery was developing its teaching and training materials on nuclear operations. However, the two groups never engaged in purposeful collaboration on terminology.[13] The Second Artillery materials naturally included descriptions and interpretations of the policy that guided its operations, but it did not use the same vocabulary that the Chinese participants in bilateral and international discussions did. For example, the Second Artillery uses a different Chinese word (ezhi) to describe deterrence. The Chinese word for deterrence used by Chinese nuclear policy experts and included in the glossary (weishe) is used by the Second Artillery to describe coercion. Outside observers, unaware of the difference, could easily become confused, especially if they read the materials in translation, where, depending on the word choices made by the translator, the difference might not appear.

The existence of different Chinese vocabularies does not necessarily mean that China is engaged in an internal debate about its nuclear weapons policy, especially considering the discrete circumstances, motivations, and requirements that precipitated their separate development. It is easy to understand how U.S. analysts could imagine that they were observing such a debate, unaware that the two Chinese groups rarely if ever communicated with each other. Yet, suspicions by some in the United States that the mere existence of these two vocabularies exposes a conscious Chinese effort to project a public policy for diplomatic purposes and keep a different policy secret for military purposes seem unjustified.[14] The following analysis of the classified text the Second Artillery uses to train its officers and soldiers shows that although they may use a different vocabulary, the Second Artillery and the Chinese participants in the U.S.-Chinese nuclear dialogue are describing the same nuclear weapons policy, which assumes a small nuclear force, kept off alert, to be launched only in retaliation.

One Policy, Three Characteristics

The textual evidence that China has one nuclear weapons policy and that the Chinese military relies on that policy to train and operate its nuclear forces is overwhelming. There are scores of references to the three essential characteristics of China’s declared nuclear weapons policy scattered throughout the 409 pages of The Science of Operations of the Second Artillery: a small force kept off alert and used only for retaliation.

A small nuclear force. There are multiple references to the size of China’s nuclear arsenal in the Second Artillery text, and that arsenal is consistently described as “very small” relative to likely nuclear-armed adversaries. The Second Artillery’s awareness of the limited numbers, accuracy, and capabilities of China’s nuclear weapons is articulated in the textbook’s descriptions of China’s “nuclear retaliation strike operations.” The purpose of these strikes is “to create a great feeling of terror in the enemy’s mind that causes the enemy to lose its determination for war.” This is imagined to be accomplished through “centralized retaliatory strikes” against a careful selection of “strategic targets” at a “critical moment” the enemy could not anticipate. Despite its limited arsenal and the presumption of considerable losses after China absorbs a first strike, the Second Artillery assumes an ability to launch multiple retaliatory strikes. This suggests that the authors presume that their relatively small nuclear force is sufficient to accomplish their mission.

The Second Artillery instructs its officers that, in the “glorious tradition” of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s superior command and strategy, not the enemy’s superior weapons, will be the key to the success of its “retaliatory nuclear operations,” with success being defined as a cessation of the enemy’s attack. Throughout the text, the authors emphasize the political and psychological characteristics of nuclear weapons and that the objective of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by China is “the creation of a psychological effect” on the enemy that “abates its willingness to continue or start a war.” This suggests that the size and composition of Chinese nuclear forces are calibrated to preserve the ability to inflict enough punishment to force an imagined enemy from continuing a nuclear attack against China, not to deny an enemy the physical means of carrying out such an attack.

There is no discussion in the text of specific strikes and targets presumed to create this psychological effect. Targets are described in general terms and the list includes “command centers, communications hubs, transportation junctions, military bases, political centers, economic centers, industrial bases, etc.”[15] Moreover, targeting is repeatedly described as a product of an “overall strategy” determined by China’s “high leadership,” not the Second Artillery. This suggests that decisions about the size and composition of China’s nuclear arsenal are not within the purview of the Second Artillery, whose responsibility is to operate the weapons, not to develop targeting plans or nuclear strategy.

Kept off alert. The Second Artillery’s organizational structure[16] and operational practices suggest that China’s nuclear warheads are stored separately and not mated to their missiles until they are prepared for launch. The textbook also notes that radiation dangers associated with installing the warheads on the missiles dictate that this should be done as close as possible to an anticipated launch.[17]

The Second Artillery’s nuclear forces are divided into a number of separate units with different responsibilities, including warhead bases at some distance from the missile bases, warhead inspection and installation teams, and missile brigades. The text indicates that a limited number of warheads are co-located at some launch sites but that concentrated retaliatory strikes would require warheads to be transferred from the warhead bases to the missile brigades prior to launch.[18] Separation and scattering of the Second Artillery’s nuclear assets is viewed as having the advantage of increasing survivability, even though it slows their response time.

Timing is a factor in Chinese preparations for a retaliatory nuclear strike, and the text instructs the officers and soldiers of the Second Artillery on the importance of being able to respond quickly to commands to prepare to launch and to a launch order from the “high leadership.” The text makes clear, however, that speed is less strategically important than the ability to strike at a carefully chosen moment. The preparations for launch are described as occurring over an extended period of time and intending to be a coercive or deterrent gesture, meant to compel a cessation of conventional attacks or to demonstrate the will and capability to retaliate after a nuclear attack.

Launched only in retaliation. There are no first-use scenarios for the Second Artillery’s nuclear forces discussed in the text. Specific operations and training for what are consistently referenced as “retaliatory nuclear attacks” are premised on the assumption that the forces of the Second Artillery have been struck first and will need to be able to carry out their “retaliatory nuclear attack operations” under severely degraded, dangerous, and unpredictable conditions. Indeed, the modifier “retaliatory” precedes every instance—and there are many—in which the words for a possible Chinese nuclear weapons strike appear in the text.

Even in a section of the text discussing an intentional “lowering of the nuclear coercion threshold,” the “lowest possible threshold” is not an actual strike. It is merely a public announcement of intended enemy targets.[19] The text dictates that if this final threat to use nuclear weapons fails to stop the enemy from further military activity, in order to maintain credibility—specifically, that “China’s words can be believed and that it will do what it says”—the Second Artillery must “in the midst of high-level nuclear coercion, complete preparations for a retaliatory nuclear attack.”[20] Crossing the threshold is demonstrating they are preparing a retaliatory strike, not, as widely reported, threatening to strike first.[21]

Most importantly, the text specifically states, “In accord with our national principle not to be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, the Second Artillery’s strategic nuclear forces can carry out a retaliatory nuclear attack against the enemy, following the command of the ‘high leadership,’ only after the enemy has first attacked us with nuclear weapons.”[22] Discussion of the implications of China’s no-first-use pledge appears in several places in the text; one example is a discussion of the requirements of China’s “active defense” strategy, which some U.S. analysts interpret as an expression of China’s intent to strike first. The text makes clear that “active defense” dictates that the Second Artillery’s nuclear forces are to be launched only in retaliation after a nuclear attack.[23]

This classified military textbook was not intended for external audiences, but for the officers and soldiers of the Second Artillery who operate China’s nuclear forces. These internal instructions could not be more explicit or more consistent with Chinese statements to the United States over the past 50 years.

Parsing the Differences

Russian and U.S. arms control experts are birds of a feather who can talk for hours and with great enthusiasm about nuclear arms control. The recent negotiations over the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty showed that although it still is very difficult for them to reach a binding agreement, discussions, at least, proceed with a high degree of mutual appreciation and respect. This is largely because the two sides have a common language, common assumptions, and a common objective that emerged from their shared experience as nuclear rivals during the Cold War.

U.S.-Soviet arms control talks proceeded from the assumption that left unimpeded by negotiated limitations, both sides would continue to be highly motivated to seek the ability to launch a disarming first strike against the other. The two sides also shared the belief that the nuclear arms race created by these motivations continually generated new and intolerable uncertainties that could precipitate a large-scale nuclear exchange. The purpose of bilateral arms control negotiations was to establish an assurance that neither side could obtain a decisive first-strike capability.

The principal means to establish this assurance were agreements that fixed the number of deployed weapons, limited the deployment of defenses, and provided reliable verification that these obligations were met. The substance and art of the negotiations was deciding which weapons and defenses to limit and to what degree. There was intense disagreement over these questions, which continues between the United States and Russia today, but the objective for both sides remains the same: diminishing mutual fear of a disarming first strike.

China does not have a first-strike capability that could disarm the United States, and there is no evidence that Beijing is seeking such a capability. The goals of the U.S.-Chinese bilateral nuclear dialogue, therefore, are as different as the size of their respective nuclear arsenals. China’s goals are clear: it seeks assurances that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons or attempt to launch a disarming first strike, conventional or nuclear, against China’s nuclear forces. The United States is unwilling to provide China with the assurances it seeks.

The United States, on the other hand, continues to request greater Chinese transparency about its capabilities and its intentions. Unfortunately, this is a request China finds difficult to oblige. The Second Artillery text makes clear that the objective of its nuclear operations is to create uncertainty and confuse the United States. According to this logic, providing more detailed information about its nuclear arsenal would only leave less to chance and thereby increase the U.S. incentive to launch a pre-emptive first strike in a moment of crisis. China’s nuclear forces are small enough to make such a strike a tempting choice. Moreover, some Chinese worry that advances in U.S. conventional capabilities make it conceivable that such a strike could succeed without resorting to nuclear weapons. U.S. faith in ballistic missile defenses, however misplaced, creates an additional worry.

Presumably, one shared goal of the participants in the bilateral dialogue is to find a way to prevent the other from crossing the nuclear threshold in the event of a conflict. China’s assurance that it will not cross it first, under any circumstances, appears to be genuine, based on the guidance given to the officers and soldiers of the Second Artillery in its text on nuclear operations. Moreover, China’s adamant insistence on a similar assurance from the United States suggests it believes it would be a genuine constraint on U.S. behavior. U.S. negotiators might make more progress with China if they used the talks to explore why China places such a high value on a no-first-use assurance and believes it contributes to stability.

Chinese negotiators should make a better effort to understand why the United States places so little trust in a no-first-use assurance, instead of assuming the U.S. refusal to discuss it is an expression of a hegemonic ambition to dominate and contain China. They might make more progress with the United States if they acknowledged the difficulty U.S. participants have in setting aside their own experience with the Soviet Union’s no-first-use pledge, particularly when discussing a Chinese nuclear strategy that relies on secrecy and deception to maintain an effective deterrent.

Both sides should be more aware that miscommunication and misunderstanding are subtle, persistent, and nontrivial issues that should not be overlooked and cannot be easily addressed. ACT

 

 

 

Gregory Kulacki is a senior analyst and the China project manager in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Since joining the UCS in 2002, he has focused on promoting and conducting dialogue between Chinese and U.S. experts on nuclear arms control and space security.

 

 

ENDNOTES

 

1. For a Chinese characterization of U.S. attitudes about China’s no-first-use declaration from a Chinese participant in the bilateral nuclear dialogue, see Li Bin and Nie Hongyi, “Zhong-Mei zhanlüe wendingxing de kaocha” [An investigation of Chinese-U.S. strategic stability], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi (2008), pp. 13-19. For an English language translation, see www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/Li-and-Nie-translation-final-5-22-09.pdf.

 

2. Jeffrey Lewis and Gregory Kulacki, “Meiguo jujue ‘bu shouxian shiyong’ zhi yuanyin ji Zhonguo de yingdui” [Why the United States objects to the phrase “no first use” and how China might respond], Meiguo Yanjiu [American Studies Quarterly] (forthcoming).

 

3. For U.S. doubts about China’s no-first-use assurance from a U.S. participant in the bilateral nuclear dialogue, see Brad Roberts, “China-U.S. Nuclear Relations: What Relationship Best Serves U.S. Interests,” Institute for Defense Analyses, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, August 2001.

 

4. For one of the earliest and most influential analyses, see Alastair Iain Johnston, “China’s New ‘Old Thinking’: The Concept of Limited Deterrence,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1995-1996): 5-42. For a more recent articulation of the same argument, see Michael S. Chase, Andrew S. Erickson, and Christopher Yeaw, “Chinese Theater and Strategic Missile Force Modernization and Its Implications for the United States,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (February 2009): 67-114.

 

5. In March 2011, Chinese participants in semiofficial bilateral nuclear talks complained that the Obama administration was preventing U.S. officials from participating in future semiofficial talks, even though U.S. officials had regularly participated in past talks. Moreover, the Obama administration rejected official talks led by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, insisting instead on talks with the Second Artillery. Chinese officials, interviews with author, Beijing, March 2011.

 

6. Yu Jixun, ed., Dier paobing zhanyixue [Second Artillery operational studies], (Beijing: People’s Liberation Army Press, 2004). The author was given the opportunity to review this text extensively, and the analysis in this paper is based on that examination.

 

7. Yu, Dier paobing zhanyixue, p. 59.

 

8. Shen Dingli, “China’s Evaluation of the Adjustment to U.S. Security Policy Since September 11, 2001,” Defense & Security Analysis, Vol. 19, No. 4 (December 2003): 319–326.

 

9. Yu, Dier paobing zhanyixue, pp. 15-28.

 

10. “China Shifting Nuclear Rules of Engagement: Report,” Defense News, January 5, 2011.

 

11. Committee on the U.S.-Chinese Glossary of Nuclear Security Terms, National Research Council, English-Chinese, Chinese-English Nuclear Security Glossary (Washington: National Academies Press, 2008).

 

12. Johnston, “China’s New ‘Old Thinking.’”

 

13. Chinese participants, interviews with author, Beijing, September 2010, March 2011, and June 2011.

 

14. Michael Mazza and Dan Blumenthal, “China’s Strategic Forces in the 21st Century: The PLA’s Changing Nuclear Doctrine and Force Posture,” Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, April 6, 2011.

 

15. Yu, Dier paobing zhanyixue, p. 300.

 

16. Ibid., p. 162 (organizational chart).

 

17. Ibid., p. 202.

 

18. Ibid.

 

19. Ibid., p. 295.

 

20. Ibid., pp. 295-296.

 

21. “China Shifting Nuclear Rules.” The news story, originally published by Kyodo News but now removed from its website, was based on an analysis of the Second Artillery text examined in this article. See Jeffrey Lewis, “China and No First Use,” Arms Control Wonk, January 14, 2011, http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/3446/china-and-no-first-use-3.

 

22. Yu, Dier paobing zhanyixue, p. 59.

 

23. Ibid., p. 93.

Talks between China and the United States on the countries’ respective nuclear weapons programs are going nowhere. Each side expresses frustration and disappointment with the other. The problem could be that the two sides are talking past each other, like chickens talking with ducks, as the Chinese say.

Disarmament and the Deficit

Daryl G. Kimball

Within weeks, a congressional “supercommittee” is due to deliver recommendations for reducing the U.S. federal budget deficit over the next decade. The Pentagon and the White House support trimming military spending by at least $350 billion as part of the plan, but some Republicans are balking. If Congress fails to agree on a deficit reduction formula, even deeper budget cuts will be triggered.

If Congress and the White House are serious about reducing unnecessary defense expenditures, they should start by curtailing the Pentagon’s ambitious plans to develop and build new and excessively large strategic nuclear delivery forces that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in the years to come.

Although U.S. and Russian arms reduction agreements have significantly reduced the size and salience of the two countries’ Cold War-era nuclear stockpiles, each country’s arsenal far exceeds what is necessary to deter nuclear attack. Today, the United States deploys 1,800 warheads on 882 deployed strategic delivery vehicles; Russia deploys 1,537 warheads on 521 deployed strategic delivery vehicles. Each side possesses thousands more warheads in storage.

No other nuclear-armed country deploys more than 300 strategic warheads; China has no more than 40 to 50 warheads on intercontinental-range missiles. Nevertheless, both Russia and the United States currently plan to spend scarce resources to modernize and deploy excessive numbers of nuclear weapons for decades to come.

The Obama administration has outlined plans to replace 12 of the existing 14 Trident nuclear-armed submarines that now carry 228 missiles armed with about 1,100 thermonuclear warheads. The Pentagon is seeking billions to extend the life of 420 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles and develop and build a follow-on intercontinental missile. Pentagon planners also want 80 to 100 new nuclear-capable strategic bombers with a new air-launched, nuclear-capable cruise missile to replace the existing B-2 and B-52 bombers that are expected to last another 20 years. The total lifetime costs for the new subs and bombers alone would exceed $400 billion.

As outgoing Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright told reporters July 14, “The challenge here is that we have to recapitalize all three legs [of the nuclear triad], and we don’t have the money to do it.”

To keep pace and to field the 1,550 strategic warheads allowed under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), Russia would have to follow through on its own very expensive, multiyear nuclear modernization effort.

Rather than maintaining obsolete arsenals that they neither need nor can afford, leaders in Washington and Moscow could pursue further, reciprocal reductions in their overall strategic nuclear forces—to 1,000 warheads or fewer each—and still retain more than enough megatonnage to deter nuclear attack by any current or future adversary.

The White House, Congress, and the supercommittee can pursue disarmament and deficit reduction in a number of ways.

For example, by rightsizing its fleet of Trident nuclear-armed subs from 14 to 8 or fewer and building no more than 8 new SSBN(X) nuclear-armed boats, the United States could still deploy the same number of strategic nuclear warheads at sea as is currently planned (about 1,000) and save roughly $26 billion over 10 years, $31 billion over 30 years, and $120 billion over the life of the program.

By delaying the Long-Range Penetrating Bomber (LRPB) program beyond the next 10 years, the United States would save at least $3.7 billion in research and development costs. If the LRPB program were canceled, the United States would save at least $50 billion in procurement costs alone. Because the Pentagon will continue to deploy 60 already-proven B-2s and B-52s under New START, delaying the new bomber program would not have any impact on U.S. nuclear force deployments.

Although the United States could achieve even deeper nuclear reductions while still maintaining all three legs of the triad, further budget savings could be achieved by phasing out long-range bombers from the nuclear mission.

The fiscal and national security logic of trimming U.S. nuclear excess is so strong that one hawkish senator, Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), recently proposed cutting $79 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget over the next decade by reducing the deployed nuclear stockpile and by delaying development of the new bomber until the mid-2020s.

The Soviet Union dissolved 20 years ago and, with it, the threat of a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack from Russia. Maintaining thousands of nuclear weapons does nothing to address this century’s top security challenges—civil war, famine, nuclear terrorism, and failed states.

By responsibly reducing strategic nuclear forces and scaling back new weapons systems, the United States can help close its budget deficit. By reducing the incentive for Russia to rebuild its arsenal, these budget savings will make the United States safer and more secure.

Within weeks, a congressional “supercommittee” is due to deliver recommendations for reducing the U.S. federal budget deficit over the next decade. The Pentagon and the White House support trimming military spending by at least $350 billion as part of the plan, but some Republicans are balking. If Congress fails to agree on a deficit reduction formula, even deeper budget cuts will be triggered.

Iran’s Nuclear Program: An Interview with Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh

Interviewed by Peter Crail

Ali Asghar Soltanieh has served since 2006 as Iran’s permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A nuclear physicist by training, he has held numerous diplomatic positions dealing with nuclear and other nonconventional weapons.

Soltanieh spoke with Arms Control Today on September 6 by telephone from his office in Vienna. The interview touched on many of the controversies surrounding Iran’s nuclear program and IAEA access to facilities that are part of the program.

The interview was transcribed by Kelsey Davenport. It has been edited for clarity and length.

ACT: On the diplomatic front, all of the countries involved in the nuclear impasse have said that they are committed to a diplomatic resolution. But attempts have not been successful so far. Russia has recently discussed with your country a proposal to revive negotiations, and your ambassador in Moscow had said that Iran accepted the generalities of that proposal. What aspect of the proposal does Iran accept, and what aspects would need additional consideration?

Soltanieh: As my foreign minister said after the meeting with his Russian counterpart, we have welcomed the initiative, and we are studying this proposal. In my country, officials are studying it and will reflect appropriately. This is outside the domain of my responsibility being the permanent representative to all international organizations [in Vienna], including the IAEA. But at least I can repeat what the position is, that we have already welcomed this initiative and we are considering it carefully, the proposal. At the same time, I have to say what has happened recently in the context of the IAEA is the visit of the deputy director-general, Mr. [Herman] Nackaerts. I also accompanied him to Iran for a one-week visit to all nuclear installations and also talks with the head of the Atomic Energy Organization [of Iran (AEOI)] and the vice president of Iran, which in fact were the biggest step toward transparency and cooperation. Therefore, we have in fact started this process of taking a step in a proactive approach, and therefore we are waiting to see what the steps are from the other side. We expect that this biggest step of cooperation from our side would be welcomed, and we would be encouraged to take further steps.

ACT: You mentioned the recent visit by Mr. Nackaerts, and I understand that, during that visit, Iran provided access to some additional sites that previously the IAEA had not been allowed to visit with regularity. What was the rationale for allowing those visits?

Soltanieh: First of all, we had decided to make sure that the [IAEA] and the Department of Safeguards and Mr. Nackaerts, who was visiting in his capacity as deputy director-general for the first time, would have a sort of blank check. As I mentioned at the beginning of the visit, he can go wherever he wants, and in fact it happened. When we were visiting the sites that are declared and normally inspected by inspectors, he requested possibly that he could see the production of the heavy-water plant. Therefore I got the approval of my authorities. Therefore, he was able to, with his deputies accompanying him, visit that plant. This was for the first time after some years; the reason we didn’t see and we still don’t see an obligation [to provide such access routinely] is because the heavy-water plant, for example, is covered by the additional protocol, and we are not implementing the additional protocol any more, since the UN Security Council is involved in this matter. So that was one of the things.

Also, of course, during his visit, he requested that we grant access to see the R&D, research and development, on the advanced centrifuges. It was a very, very difficult decision. But I am proud and grateful to inform you that my authorities finally agreed, and he visited the R&D [facilities], and he was able to see all the advances in research and development on different generations of centrifuges. He also had the opportunity to see the workshop as well as the simulation activities. I declared that nobody in the whole world has shown these centrifuges and R&D to the inspectors of the IAEA. Even in EURATOM [European Atomic Energy Community], they are not showing [such facilities to] the inspectors of EURATOM in Europe. Therefore, we have done something unprecedented in the history of IAEA; and I hope that, with this biggest step, which is 100 percent transparency, we have given a strong message to all involved, particularly those who have been negotiating with us, the P5+1[the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—plus Germany]. Also [I hope] that they receive this message, that if there is no language of threat, sanctions, or this sort of obsolete policy of carrot and stick, that if the approach is of a logical, civilized request in a very friendly, cooperative environment, then the answer is yes. I have said previously in one of these interviews, that if you tell Iranians that they must do something, then they will say no with a loud voice. But if you say please do so, the answer is yes, or we will try our best. That is what has happened during this visit.

ACT: You had said that the visits to the R&D facilities were unprecedented. My understanding is that the agency did have access to certain R&D facilities when Iran was implementing the additional protocol. Is that correct?

Soltanieh: The last time was when [IAEA Deputy Director-General] Mr. [Olli] Heinonen and [IAEA Director-General] Mr. [Mohamed] ElBaradei, in [ElBaradei’s] last visit in October 2009, had the chance to visit the R&D [facilities], yes. That was also a sign of maximum cooperation transparency. [We agreed to] the request of Mr. ElBaradei to visit the R&D facilities―though Iran is not implementing the additional protocol or 3.1 modified code[1]―as a sign of cooperation beyond its legal obligation. Unfortunately, soon after such a big step, when [ElBaradei] was back in Vienna, there was another resolution in the Security Council. Therefore, we found out that no matter how much we cooperate, those who have a hidden agenda, a political agenda, are not cooperating and are just following different tracks. That is what my strong and clear message this time is. Hopefully, all countries and the IAEA [will] show maximum vigilance to protect this new trend of cooperation transparency, and we will not be faced with disappointing words or actions that will disappoint us for continuing such cooperation and transparent measures even beyond our legal obligation as we did during his last visit.

ACT: On the issue of transparency, [AEOI director] Mr. [Fereydoun] Abbasi said recently that Iran would be ready to grant the agency full supervision over its nuclear activities for five years if UN sanctions were lifted. Can you provide any further details on this proposal, and what full supervision would mean?

Soltanieh: We always have had safeguards applied in Iran under the NPT [nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] comprehensive safeguards, and everything has been under control by the IAEA. But at the same time, the nuance in the direction of what we have done during [Nackaerts’] visit means that we are ready to cooperate fully with the agency and help that they not have any ambiguity about the exclusively peaceful nature of our activity, provided that we are not facing punitive actions, including sanctions.

ACT: Just to be clear, so is Iran saying that sanctions would have to be lifted first, before that full supervision would be allowed?

Soltanieh: Well of course, as I said, this is the expectation. And we have already taken the step in fact—if you say, which one first, which one next, we have already taken this step. Now it is their turn.

ACT: On the critical issue of enrichment, Iran has often said that it would not give up enrichment. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said publicly that Iran would have the right to enrichment under IAEA inspections at some future date, but only after it had addressed international concerns about its nuclear program. Now if Iran’s primary concern is about what it calls its nuclear rights, why hasn’t Iran been willing to negotiate with the P5+1 with the understanding outlined by Secretary Clinton?

Soltanieh: You see there is a dilemma here. First of all, the inalienable right of the countries for the peaceful use of nuclear energy including fuel cycle and enrichment, that is already in the statute of the IAEA and NPT Article IV.[2] Therefore, the recognition is already there. The only thing that we always said and expect is not to create obstacles for us or any other country to benefit from these inalienable rights enshrined in the statute and the NPT. Calling for suspension is in fact a violation of that right and a violation of the spirit and letter of the statute.

I just want you and your distinguished readers to go to the NPT text and IAEA statute. You can never find in any of these documents the notion of suspension. Suspension was invented for Iran, and the verification of suspension was invented for Iran. Therefore, according to these legal documents, nobody could say to any country that you should suspend your nuclear activities. The only thing is that the IAEA should verify the declaration by member states and monitor and control those activities to make sure that there is no diversion toward military or prohibited purposes. That is exactly what we want. Therefore if the United States or other countries understand that they should not contradict themselves with these principles and international legal documents, then we are in the same boat and the same place. We should have the same understanding of what we are talking about.

The P5+1 negotiation also—in a statement, [Iranian chief nuclear negotiator] Dr. [Saeed] Jalili clearly mentions that this is a matter of principle. Why don’t you announce that both of us are respecting this principle? The second principle is that if we want to negotiate and talk to each other, toward confidence building or further cooperation and strengthening our understanding of cooperation, then there should not be the language of threats or sanctions or punitive action. These are contradicting each other. The same thing that I said, the language of carrot and stick is the language applied to the animals and is humiliation for all countries, including mine, with thousands of years of civilization.

ACT: Now you mentioned that the NPT does talk about the rights to peaceful uses. Doesn’t it also talk about responsibilities for states to adhere to IAEA safeguards? It seems that the IAEA has not been satisfied with Iranian cooperation to date.

Soltanieh: I am 100 percent in agreement with you that, in the NPT, rights and obligations go side by side. I agree with that. But according to the NPT, we do have a comprehensive safeguards agreement, which is documented in INFCIRC/153, the model [safeguards] agreement [for NPT non-nuclear-weapon states]. And of course for Iran, that is [INFCIRC/] 214. According to legal obligations, we are fully compl[ying with] and fully committed to it. But the situation now, which is very unfortunate and disappointing, is that the IAEA is in fact referring to the Security Council resolutions and asks [for] additional access or requests beyond the NPT comprehensive documents. And that is the problem. We do not consider it a legal basis for the UN Security Council resolution. On many occasions, I have mentioned, particularly in the board of governors of the IAEA, I have proved to the whole world that these are legal documents, that the UN Security Council has no legal basis. [There are f]ive clear reasons that I want you to record and reflect to your distinguished readers, so that they know exactly why we are not implementing the UN Security Council resolution.

The first reason is, according to Article XII.C of the [IAEA] statue, the noncompliance of a member state should be recognized by inspectors, because the inspector has the access to the places, the materials, confidential information, and individuals.[3] Then if they report noncompliance to the director-general, the director-general then should refer [the matter] to the board of governors. But in the case of Iran, after years of negotiation between the EU-3 [France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, a group that later was expanded into the P5+1] and Iran and robust inspections, then in 2006, some diplomats, European and Americans, being on the board of governors, themselves judged that there was noncompliance before 2003. Therefore, this is in 100 percent contravention with the statute, [Article] XII.C. That is one reason.

The second reason is that, in Article XII.C, it says that the country that is referred to the Security Council is the recipient country. It means that when this article was written decades ago, for the country that is receiving nuclear materials and equipment from the IAEA and misuses it for nonpeaceful purposes, that is noncompliance. That is why this article says that the recipient country should be referred to the Security Council and that the country should return the equipment or materials to the IAEA. But in the case of Iran, this is not applied because we were not the recipient country of nuclear materials or equipment for Natanz enrichment or other activities.

The third reason that the Security Council has no legal basis is that the country’s issue should be referred to the Security Council if there is proof of diversion of nuclear material to military or prohibited purposes. In the old reports of the IAEA, under the former director-general ElBaradei and [Yukiya] Amano, the new director-general, you see this language that says that there is no evidence of diversion of nuclear materials to prohibited purposes. Therefore, this does not apply to Iran.

The fourth reason is that if there are obstacles for inspectors to go to a country, for example North Korea, when the inspectors were not permitted to [go], then this matter should be sent to New York. But in the case of Iran, you can see in all the reports of the director-general over the last eight years that the director-general says that the IAEA is able to continue its verification in Iran. It means that there have been no obstacles whatsoever for inspectors to come to Iran. That is the fourth reason.

The fifth reason is very important and, in fact, pressing and very disappointing. In the resolutions of the EU-3 in the board of governors, before this matter was sent to New York or New York was involved, the Security Council in their own resolution, they confess, confirm that the suspension of enrichment was a non-legally binding, confidence-building, and volunteer measure. If this is non-legally binding, then how come that, after two and a half years, we stopped the suspension, then they turned to the board of governors and said that Iran has violated its obligation and is not legal, [that] Iran should continue its suspension? They admit themselves that it is not legally binding.

Because of these five reasons, the resolution of the board of governors sending this matter to New York and the UN Security Council resolution have no legal basis, and Iran has not implemented, has not applied, and will not implement this resolution because there is no legal basis.

There is another problem, a technical problem, which says that reprocessing should be in breach, but if you read Amano’s report this week, it says there are no reprocessing activities in Iran. How can we suspend what does not exist in Iran? These are the legal and technical problems of this resolution.

ACT: On the suspension issue, looking at it from another angle, Iran has an agreement with Russia for fuel for the Bushehr reactor for the next 10 years. Is it possible that Iran can simply decide for itself that it does not need further enriched uranium in the near term and address international concerns and then start enriching again once it has a need to?

Soltanieh: Please bear in mind that, for the Bushehr power plant, we have only received the first [fuel] load, which is roughly 80 [metric] tons, and after one year we [will] need another 28 tons or so. We do not have any guarantee or any agreement for another five years or the 30 years of its work. Having said so, we have also a lot of experiences of confidence deficits in the past. You know that, for the [Tehran] Research Reactor [TRR], we paid over $2 million to the Americans before the [1979 Iranian] Revolution for new fuel, but we received neither the fuel nor the money after the revolution. Then we got the fuel from Argentina. Now this fuel is going to be finished and burned up. It is over two years that we have had discussions with this so-called Vienna Group—the Americans, French, and Russians in the IAEA—when ElBaradei was chairing the meeting. After two years, we have not received the fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. Even if we made a historic concession following a recent initiative with our friends from Brazil and Turkey and we made an agreement [in] the Tehran Declaration that we give them not only the money [but also] 1,200 kilograms of uranium and send it to Turkey, [the Vienna Group countries] have not shown any flexibility, and they have not come to the negotiating table. So we do not have any other choice, because of all these confidence deficits, but to continue our enrichment, of course under the political safeguards of [the] IAEA.

ACT: You mentioned the Tehran Research Reactor. Iranian officials have recently said that Iran has produced essentially enough 20 percent enriched uranium for the TRR but that it would continue to produce 20 percent enriched uranium for reactors that Iran intends to build in the future. How much 20 percent material does Iran intend to produce?

Soltanieh: So far, according to this report of the IAEA, we have produced 70.8 kilograms. You know that if we had the negotiations [leading to a] successful agreement made by the Vienna Group, we were expecting to receive under that contract roughly 120 kilograms, the same amount that we received from Argentina over 10 years back. But during past years, the reactor was not working full days, full weeks, and [at] full power. Therefore, we were able to have that amount of material for about 10 years or so. But with these existing demands of the hospitals, one million patients almost, we need to produce almost weekly, this material is perhaps the maximum four or five years. Therefore, we have to make sure that we would not have any fuel shortage.

Apart from [the TRR], we have been intending to have other reactors in Iran because unfortunately we have had many problems in receiving the radioisotope from some countries that have the monopoly. I remind you that, in the last two or three years, the world has faced the molybdenum crisis because of the Canadian reactors having problems, and others. These humanitarian aspects cannot be ignored. Therefore, we want our reactors to be able to produce [amounts large enough to meet] the demand. If we would be successful producing radioisotopes in large amounts, we have officially announced publicly that we would produce and give the radioactive isotope needed in neighboring countries in the region also.

ACT: How much fuel does the TRR have left, or how much longer is the TRR able to run?

Soltanieh: It is not working six days a week or so because we have to be cautious; we do not want to run out. We try to at least have some sort of continuity of producing radioactive isotopes. I don’t know exactly, but the time is running out. We have to speed up the production of fuel. But as you noticed, it was also in the IAEA report, we have had some achievement in working toward making the fuel rods on our own. Before this fuel is running out and the reactor will be shut down, hopefully we will be able to have the first fuel made by Iran in the core of the reactor.

ACT: Regarding the production of 20 percent uranium, what was the reason for the decision to move production to the Fordow plant?

Soltanieh: The answer is very simple, the continuation of threat from Israel, against all international laws and resolutions of the IAEA. In fact Fordow’s very reason for existence is because of the augmentation of the Bush administration’s threat of attack and also Israeli [attack]. Otherwise, we did not want to have another investment. Now we have the 20 percent [enriched uranium]; we have to make sure it would be in a safer position, that is why we decided to put the 20 percent there. The rest of the activities will, of course, continue in Natanz because Natanz is designed for lower enrichment, up to 5 percent, to produce the fuel needed for power plants.

ACT: Now speaking of additional plants, Mr. Abbasi recently said that Iran did not have plans to build new enrichment facilities over the next two years, whereas Iran previously said that there are plans to build 10 new enrichment facilities and last year a site for the first of those 10 had been found. I was wondering if you could explain the shift.

Soltanieh: This is the updated decision because we had been exploring the possibilities; all the decisions will be a function of the political environment of the whole world and also the technical requirements. Therefore, based on these things, the decision is really clear: we have decided for 20 percent [enrichment] in Fordow and the rest of the activities up to 5 percent are going to be at Natanz. Of course, we are doing our R&D, and we did a new generation of centrifuges [that are] faster, [with] more production, more efficiency. That is what we are doing. We are continuing our R&D to have better machines with better qualities and efficiency to put in at Natanz.

ACT: Going back a bit to the issue of confidence-building measures and negotiations: During Iran’s previous negotiations with the EU-3 in 2005, your government proposed a number of possible confidence-building steps intended to be implemented while a long-term resolution was sought. This included shipping out Iran’s low-enriched uranium [LEU] or converting all of the LEU immediately to fuel rods. Is Iran still willing to carry out those kinds of steps as part of confidence-building arrangements with the P5+1?

Soltanieh: With due respect, these are obsolete now because we are facing very speedy developments in the international arena and also in Iran’s nuclear development. Now in this situation where we are, the only thing I can advise to those who have not been able to understand or have not been able to cope with the reality on the ground is, we are the master of enrichment technology; we are continuing enrichment; we have, as it is reported [by the IAEA], old enrichment activities, [which] are at the same time under the IAEA [safeguards]. We cannot go backward. All activities are there, and almost every week, inspectors are in Iran, 24-hour cameras working, and as you noticed in the reports of the [director-general], there is no question whatsoever about the enrichment activities. Everything is clear. In these [previous] years, there have been some questions about contamination and other matters, but all issues related to our nuclear activities are resolved. The only things that they are raising in the IAEA are some sort of allegations by a couple of countries, including the United States—allegations of some studies, these allegations that we are aiming at going to possible military dimensions, which are all fabricated. We do not have any problem whatsoever with the IAEA regarding our old activities, which are under safeguards. Therefore, those proposals have no utility any more. We expect the countries concerned and the IAEA to not only cope with these realities but also welcome Iran’s proactive measures and steps taken recently and all together try and prevent any further politicization of the IAEA and let the IAEA do its professional work with Iran and resolve any questions left.

ACT: That leads me to my next question about these alleged studies. Now if, as you say, the accusations are baseless, while you note that Iran has cooperated with the IAEA on a number of outstanding issues, the agency says that it has not received the cooperation that it would like to try and resolve the alleged-studies issue. Now if the accusations are in fact baseless, why not provide the IAEA with the access that it requests in order to demonstrate just that?

Soltanieh: Well, I want to remind you that, in fact in August 2007, Iran made a historic decision at the highest level of the country after the preliminary discussion between [Iranian nuclear negotiator] Dr. [Ali] Larijani and [EU foreign policy chief] Mr. [Javier] Solana and Mr. ElBaradei; then Iran decided to make a maximum concession. We negotiated with the IAEA, and we concluded a work plan, or so-called modality, of how to deal with these outstanding issues, which is INFCIRC/711. I request everybody to go to the Web site of the IAEA and read [the document]; the IAEA confirmed [it], and it was endorsed by the board of governors.

In that document, it says that the IAEA has no more questions than the questions listed in these documents in the modality, or work plan. There were six issues, and it said that if Iran and the IAEA will discuss and resolve these issues, then the safeguards in Iran will be implemented in a routine manner. Unfortunately, after the six issues were resolved—and in two reports, ElBaradei reported that these were resolved—still, this matter is pending. One of the other matters raised was the so-called alleged studies, or so-called American laptop. Although in this modality it was very clear, agreed upon by both sides, that the IAEA should deliver the documents and Iran merely give in its response its assessment of those documents. No more and no less. No more visits or interviews or sampling, no visits to places, nothing.

But unfortunately after that, first the Americans did not tell the IAEA to deliver the documents, and the director-general harshly criticized the Americans that they have jeopardized the documentation process, but he asked us to show flexibility. We agreed. Then the inspectors came with a PowerPoint presentation rather than delivering the documents to us. Apart from it, we had the meeting that we were not supposed to have; we had a 100-hour meeting, and during that meeting, we tried to go slide by slide and explain to them over a 100-hour meeting and 117 pages of written documents we gave confidentially to the IAEA. We explained one by one why these documents are false and fabricated. Therefore, we expected that this file will be closed after six months or a year. Now after three, four years, this matter still is not closed because the IAEA says it has received more allegations from some open sources. This cannot continue; this is an endless process. At some point, we have to put an end to this process. That was the issue that we raised.

However, in spite of that, in the last month, after the meeting of Dr. Abbasi and Dr. [Ali Akhbar] Salehi, our foreign minister with the director-general in Vienna, they tried to show the flexibility or cooperation to say that, first, the inspectors or the officials of the IAEA are invited to visit Iran and then, after that, we said that we are ready to see how we can deal with this. If you read Amano’s report, it gives not only positive reports about the inspections, [but] also he has mentioned in one of the paragraphs on the possible military dimension issue that there has been discussion in Iran, that we have had preliminary talks on how to deal with this issue. But of course, there are concerns, security concerns that we have—the release of confidential information, which many times has happened in the IAEA and many other matters. But we have proved in the past that these allegations are baseless, and we are ready to prove it again, to make sure that this is the case, because we are against nuclear weapons, we don’t have any nuclear weapons program, and all activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes.

The problem is unfortunately that people have forgotten, and they are not reading the past reports of the director-general. I recall several allegations by Americans about the military sites like Parchin and Lavizan. In all these sites, one by one, it took sometimes a year or more, but if you spend the time, the inspectors and then the director-general reported that they have not found any evidence of nuclear material activities. We cannot continue this matter. If the allegations prove baseless, then that country [making the accusations] has lost its credibility, and the agency should not listen or take into consideration their accusation that they receive in a sort of open-source manner. That is the problem that we are facing. But I hope that soon we will see a new trend, we will put an end to those questions, and this matter after all these years will be removed from the agenda of the board of governors.

ACT: Just to follow up on that quickly, you mentioned the discussions that were held recently between Iran and the IAEA on those studies. Is there a possibility for follow-on talks on that issue? Was there some agreement that there would be some procedure to try and resolve some of the agency’s questions?

Soltanieh: Today we had the technical briefing by Mr. Nackaerts for member states on this report. He also informed [the members] about the visits, honestly expressed his appreciation, called this visit a transparency visit and a turning point, and [said] he appreciated it. We expect a positive response to these proactive measures by Iran so that we will be encouraged to continue the process started pursuant to talks in Iran between Mr. Nackaerts and Mr. Abbasi.

ACT: Moving away a bit from the inspections issue: The Bushehr reactor was recently hooked up to Iran’s energy grid and began generating electricity. According to the IAEA, Iran is the only country with an operating nuclear power reactor that is not member of the Convention on Nuclear Safety. Now, particularly in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster in Japan, why isn’t Iran signed up to the international nuclear safety standards?

Soltanieh: I refer you to the statement of Mr. Abbasi, who participated in the ministerial meeting on nuclear safety after the Fukushima [accident], in Vienna in June. In his statement, he officially concluded by saying, “I have the honor to announce that we have started the process of ratification.” That answer is already given to the whole world.

We are attaching great importance to nuclear safety, and we have said many times that one of the reasons that we have spent more and more money for the Bushehr power plant and the operation and start-up was delayed was because the country was insisting that the requirements of high standards, safety standards, be implemented. We have had a very big project with the IAEA for almost the last decade. During this project, the top experts of the whole world through the IAEA have been advising Bushehr for nuclear safety, and they still are.

ACT: My final question has to do with the discussion about a WMD [weapons of mass destruction]-free zone in the Middle East. Iran of course was the first country to call for a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region. What is your government’s perspective regarding the planned conference on the WMD-free zone next year?[4]

Soltanieh: I have already written a letter to Mr. Amano reflecting our position. We have already said that while Iran has been the first country since 1974 asking for a Middle East [nuclear-weapon-free] zone, unfortunately, the main obstacles have been Israel’s nuclear capability and not joining the NPT. Therefore, we considered that the only measure toward a Middle East free zone that would be meaningful would be if the whole international community put pressure on Israel to join [the] NPT promptly without delay and put all nuclear activities under the IAEA and destroy all nuclear weapons capabilities and nuclear weapons facilities. And that is the only way to do it. In fact, this was the case in all other regions [with nuclear-weapon-free zones], I presume. We cannot accept that there is a nonparty to the NPT in the region and trying to ignore the demands of the countries in the region.

There is a serious security concern by all the countries in the region if Israel continues its nuclear weapons program; there is a serious question since [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert announced that they possessed nuclear weapons, and after avalanches of pressure and criticism in the IAEA, the representative of Israel denounced and rejected the position of his prime minister. This is a very ridiculous situation. In fact in that meeting, I asked the director-general to send a fact-finding mission to see if the prime minister is telling the truth or the representative [is]. Later on in the [IAEA] General Conference, I said that my country is willing to take the cost of all fact-finding missions in Israel by the IAEA. Up until now, these questions still exist; the Middle East free zone cannot be realized unless the Israelis promptly join the NPT and put all nuclear facilities and activities under the full-scope safeguards of the IAEA, and that is it. Any forum by the IAEA and by the United Nations on the Middle East, following the 2012 conference, following the 2010 NPT Review Conference, where we made a compromise to join the consensus, will not be successful unless this problem, the main problem in the Middle East, will be resolved. We are in a vicious cycle because of Israel, and the international community should understand it. We all should be united; every country of the whole world that really wants a Middle East free zone and is really genuinely looking for a world free from nuclear weapons should put pressure on Israel to abide by the international call.

ACT: Understanding your government’s perspective on Israel and the NPT, regarding the zone, as we know from the Middle East resolution, it addresses nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Beyond the issue of Israel joining the NPT, what steps is Iran prepared to take to help move the region in the direction of finally concluding a zone free of weapons of mass destruction?

Soltanieh: Of course, in the IAEA, the concentration is on the nuclear-weapon-free zone, but as a matter of principle since Iran is in fact the only country in the Middle East that is party to all disarmament treaties on weapons of mass destruction—the BWC [Biological Weapons Convention], CWC [Chemical Weapons Convention], and NPT—and we are a signatory of the CTBT [Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty] so we would support of course a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction. You know, there are other countries, at least, joining the CTBT and the NPT, but Israel is not party to any of them.[5] Therefore in principle, yes, Iran is supporting a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction, and we will expend effort in that direction.

ACT: I think that is a good note to end on. I want to thank you again, Mr. Ambassador, for joining us.

Soltanieh: I wish you all the best. I hope this kind of interaction will help your distinguished readers to a better understanding of this whole issue. Let us hope that we will soon have this whole issue resolved and the IAEA will be depoliticized and depolarized because the polarization and politicization of the IAEA is dangerous for the future of the agency. Let’s hope for a better future and peace and prosperity all over the world, and thank you very much for your time.

ENDNOTES

[1] Code 3.1 of the subsidiary arrangements to IAEA safeguards agreements specifies when a state is required to declare facilities to the agency. The IAEA originally said that states must declare nuclear facilities six months prior to introducing nuclear material, but modified the code in 1992 to require countries to inform the agency of facilities “as soon as the decision to construct or to authorize construction has been taken, whichever is earlier.” Iran agreed to the modified code in 2003, but reverted to the original version in 2007. The IAEA maintains that Iran is bound by the stricter, modified code.

[2] The first clause of Article IV of the NPT states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.” Article I of the treaty only applies to the five nuclear-weapon states, while Article II requires that non-nuclear-weapon states not obtain or seek to obtain nuclear weapons.

[3] For the text of Article XII, see www.iaea.org/About/statute_text.html#A1.12.

[4] NPT members agreed in 1995 on a resolution to work toward establishing a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. At the 2010 NPT Review Conference, states-parties agreed to hold a conference in 2012 aimed at making progress toward establishing such a zone.

[5] Iran is a party to the CWC, BWC, and NPT and has signed the CTBT. Israel has signed the CWC and CTBT.

Interviewed by Peter Crail

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