 Disarmament Diplomacy
Issue No. 78, July/August 2004
News Shorts
US proposes "no-verification" Fissban to be
negotiated at the Conference on Disarmament
The Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva has spent a
frustrating year. Despite serious statements on serious issues and
valiant attempts from some ambassadors to break the dispiriting
years of deadlock, the CD is nearing the close of its 2004 session
with nothing much to show for its efforts.
The most significant event of the year was widely viewed as
negative. From January onwards, the CD has been awaiting the
outcome of a US interagency process to review policy on negotiating
a treaty to ban the production of plutonium and highly-enriched
uranium for nuclear weapons (fissban). Though the leaks and rumours
emanating from Washington this past year were not encouraging, some
delegations clung to the hope that following China's major
concession on the agenda in 2003, when it dropped its demand for
negotiations on 'prevention of an arms race in outer space', the
United States would put something on the table that would enable
the CD finally to get to work, starting with the fissban.
They were to be bitterly disappointed. In a few lines in a
statement on July 29 that ranged from Iran and North Korea to
landmines, US Ambassador Jackie Sanders told the CD that the United
States had come to the conclusion that effective verification of a
fissban was "not achievable". She reaffirmed the US willingness to
abide by its 15-year moratorium, and appeared to call for the
much-delayed negotiations to proceed on these new terms.
Although Sanders promised more information about what the US
envisaged for this proposed 'no-verification fissban' almost
nothing has appeared on the record, and CD ambassadors remain
confused about whether Washington wants to scrap, renegotiate or
bypass the current mandate, agreed in March 1995. Widely known as
the "Shannon mandate", this specifies "a non-discriminatory,
multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty
banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or
other nuclear explosive devices." [CD/1299] Speaking at the Arms
Control Association in Washington DC, Dr Frank von Hippel, formerly
President Clinton's science advisor, accepted that verification
would be a political challenge, but "it is technically feasible to
establish the means to effectively monitor and verify compliance
with the treaty in order to detect and deter clandestine nuclear
bomb production efforts."
Though it is understood that informal discussions have been
taking place, few CD delegations have commented on the US policy
about-turn, perhaps hoping that by the time the CD reconvenes in
January 2005, things might look different again.
South Korea Discloses Secret Nuclear Experiments
to the IAEA
In late August, the government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) told
a visiting IAEA inspection team about a previously undisclosed uranium
enrichment programme using laser technology. It was claimed that a group
of "rogue" scientists back in 2000 had carried out the experiments to
produce highly-enriched uranium (HEU) without government authorisation or
knowledge. In the late 1970s, the US suspected South Korea had an
incipient nuclear weapon programme and forced its closure.
While the laser enrichment of uranium, a process in the manufacture of HEU
for nuclear weapons, is not actually banned under the NPT, provided that it
is properly declared to the IAEA and subject to safeguards, the revelation
of secret South Korean experiments has serious political implications even
if the quantities were not militarily significant.
The disclosure was reportedly volunteered following concerns raised by IAEA
inspectors who had been denied access to a particular building during a
routine inspection at the Taejon facility.
At a time when the Six Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear programme are
stalled, the revelations are likely to hand a propaganda weapon to
Pyongyang, which admits to reprocessing plutonium, but has repeatedly
denied US accusations that it has a uranium enrichment programme as well.
The revelations may also affect efforts by the IAEA and international
community to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis. Following discovery of a
clandestine programme to enrich uranium in 2003, the United States has been
pressing for the IAEA to declare Iran in breach of its NPT obligations and
report it to the UN Security Council for punitive action. Tehran claims
that Iran's laser enrichment programme was for peaceful purposes, and, as
South Korea also insists, in the past. (The Iranian facility was reportedly
dismantled in May 2003.)
Though the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea raise many more
concerns, the fact that South Korea, a close US ally, stands exposed by the
IAEA for not having declared a similar clandestine programme complicates
the picture. If the different violations are not treated with comparable
severity, some will cry hypocrisy.
India tests Agni II missile
On Sunday August 29, India test-launched an Agni II surface to
surface missile with a range of up to 2,500 miles and capable of
carrying a nuclear or conventional payload of up to 1000 kg.
Launched from India's missile test range at Wheeler Island, Orissa
State, this was reportedly the third trial of the Agni II.
Source: International Herald Tribune, August 30,
2004.
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© 2004 The Acronym Institute.
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