Disarmament Documentation

US National Security Advisor Steve Hadley calls for Iran to respond before the G8 Summit, July 12, 2006

Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley on the President's Trip to Russia and Germany, July 12, 2006.

G8 leaders are expected to arrive in St Petersberg for the G8 summit on the evening of July 15, 2006.

Steve Hadley: ... By the time the leaders meet later this week in Russia, we expect that Iran will have responded to the offer made by the EU3 that would provide Iran with broad political, economic, and technological benefits in return for practical guarantees that Iran's nuclear program will be solely for peaceful purposes. This offer by the EU3 has the backing of Russia, China, and the United States. We hope Iran accepts the EU3 offer, which would ensure, among other things, that Iran has access to peaceful civilian nuclear power...

Q What's your thinking behind the United States intending to send spent-fuel to Russia? And what meeting do you expect the two leaders to sign that agreement?

MR. HADLEY: What was decided actually some weeks ago was that we would begin negotiation of what's called a Section 1, 2, 3 agreement, which is Section, 1, 2, 3 of the Atomic Energy Act. This is an agreement that is required in order to do civil -- substantial civil nuclear energy cooperation with any country. We have over 20 of these agreements with countries, including China, Japan, European Union, South Africa, South Korea.

So what we've agreed to do is initiate negotiations of the agreement. It will take months to do. The agreement would facilitate Russian participation in things like the Global Nuclear Energy Project and the so-called Gen IV Initiative, to develop the next generation of civil nuclear power reactors.

So it's a framework that once it is negotiated, goes through the Congress, would participate -- would facilitate civil nuclear cooperation. So, Terry, we're at the very early stages of this. We basically just decided some weeks ago that we would enter into negotiations. It's going to take a fair amount of time, and again, the agreement would have to go to the Congress.

The issue of whether part of that agreement would involve cooperation and facilitation of spent-fuel being stored in Russia, that's an idea, as you know, that's been around for over a decade. It's something that we'll have to talk about, because in order to do that, there would have to be all kinds of technical details and safeguards worked out, and we have not made a decision to do that. We've made a decision to open negotiations on a range of cooperation, and the agreement that would be required if we're going to engage in that cooperation. That's really all we've done...

Q Is it a case where you need Russian help on North Korea and Iran, for instance, so you won't be as vocal on some of the other concerns?

MR. HADLEY: No. As the President said publicly several times, our approach to Russia is we have areas where it's in our common interest to cooperate, not just in the United States' interest, but in the Russian interest to cooperate. We cooperate in those areas where it's in our mutual interest, and we're very frank about those areas in which we disagree, and try, if we can, to find common ground in those areas, but are very frank. And that also goes both ways...

Q This is on the topic of North Korea, the topic of the G8 summit. Today, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary, Shinzo Abe, said that the country should consider whether its constitution will allow preemptive military strikes. I wonder if I could get your thoughts on that, and whether that's more about Japanese internal politics, or whether Japan, perhaps, is moving towards an effort to -- preemptive strikes against North Korea?

MR. HADLEY: Japan, obviously, was concerned about the ballistic missile launches here over the last week or so. You may remember there was a launch in 1998 of a Taepodong-1, which overflew Japanese territory. A number of these missiles came down in the Sea of Japan. Obviously, Japan has a security concern.

What it shows, I think, is that the situation in Northeast Asia needs resolution. We need to get -- we need to know where we are with respect to North Korea. What does that mean? It's the reason why we announced that we are not -- why the Japanese announced this morning that they are not pushing for, at this point, a vote on the Chapter VII Security Council resolution that has been tabled and put, as they say, in blue, ready for vote, in New York.

And the reason is because the Chinese have indicated that they have a delegation going to North Korea, and they want to test whether, in light of the reaction of the international community to North Korea's failure to come back to the six-party talks on the nuclear issue and its launch of these ballistic missiles, in the face of widespread concern by the international community, whether North Korea is prepared to take three steps: to return to the moratorium on ballistic missile testing; to come back to the six-party talks; but -- even more important -- to come back to the six-party talks with a commitment to implement the September 17th* joint statement, which was worked out in the six-party talks in September of 2005.

Why is that important? Because that joint -- in that joint statement, North Korea committed to a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. And the other countries committed to a series of economic and security of other measures that provided a framework for going forward and providing a diplomatic solution to this problem. We need to know if North Korea is prepared to come back and re-engage in the diplomacy.

The Chinese have asked for some time to have this delegation go to Pyongyang and see if they can get affirmative answers to those questions. We think it's a good idea because we think the events of the last two weeks have shown that the issues need to be addressed.

Q The President said diplomacy takes time, but do you see some resolution before the G8 summit at the end of next week?

MR. HADLEY: We don't know. We think -- over the next several days, we're going to learn a lot. We're going to get some indication for what this delegation is going to learn. We don't have any particular deadline. We're going to monitor it every day and see what we learn. And we think, over the next few days or so, we'll get some clarification as to where we're headed...

Q Iran is widely expected not to be ready to give a final answer to the Europeans in time for the upcoming deadline. If this, indeed, happens -- I think over the weekend they said they need -- if this happens, would Secretary Rice be gearing up to move this to the U.N. Security Council when she meets with her counterparts in Paris on Wednesday? Or will they move --

MR. HADLEY: We've heard a number of statements out of Iranian officials about when they will be ready for an answer. We won't really know until we hear on Wednesday what kind of answer we get. One of the reasons why the meeting of the so-called P5 plus one foreign ministers is scheduled the next day in Paris is so that the foreign ministers can evaluate the Iranian response and see whether it is enough to move towards negotiations, or whether we need to reopen a process at the Security Council. And we'll have to see. It will depend really on the Iranian response. But we're in a position through that meeting for the foreign ministers to, if you will, make an initial determination. And then, of course, the leaders of heads of state and government for the G8 countries will be in a position to look at the issue later in the week.

Q Also, in the last couple of weeks, we've heard some tough rhetoric from some of the administration's biggest supporters, saying that the administration essentially has gone soft on its foreign policy in relation to Iran and North Korea. What do you say to that? How do you respond to that?

MR. HADLEY: Well, we'll see. Both of them have been in the Security Council with some pretty tough resolutions, and I think both of them are coming to the point where we will have some sense of the way ahead. So I would say that we have pursued a diplomatic approach. We have gotten a whole range of countries with influence on Iran and North Korea respectively to take a common position. We, I think, have had some pretty good success making these international issues where the international community is expressing its views both to Iran and North Korea. But in the end of the day, what we're going to need to see is the response of North Korea, whether it's willing to come back and try to -- and implement a joint statement that the North Koreans have already agreed to, and whether the Iranians are prepared to take a very generous offer from the EU3 and the prospect that if they suspend their enrichment program, we would join the negotiations. We'll have to see. I think the diplomacy has set it up well. We'll have to see what these countries decide...

Q Can you say, in connection with that, why we haven't had a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia when we've had one with China? What has been the problem why we've not been able --

MR. HADLEY: One of the concerns that has been, really for almost a decade, has been Russian policy on Iran's nuclear program. And you may remember, at the early -- early in the administration, Russia was pursuing constructing Bushehr nuclear -- completing the Bushehr civil nuclear power reactor, and talking about additional reactor construction, without, really, any regard towards what we thought were the serious proliferation concerns. Since that time, Russia has adopted a regime with respect to those -- construction, which requires a number of very good proliferation safeguards, including that fuel supply to the reactor would have to be taken back to Russia.

Russia has come on board with the rest of the, as we call them, the P5 plus one -- the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany -- to endorse the common approach we have to Iran. And, finally, they made a very helpful and creative idea of suggesting an enrichment facility in Russia, in which Iran could participate from a management and financial, but not a technical standpoint, that would provide nuclear fuel to Russian -- to Iranian civil nuclear power programs.

These were helpful and constructive suggestions that put Russia pretty much on the same page with us on Iran, and eliminated a major barrier to being able to start these negotiations. On the other hand, we have also made it very clear to Russia that if those negotiations are going to be successfully concluded, and if an agreement is going to pass muster with the Congress, we will have to continue to be knit up on Iran, it's such an important issue...

Source: The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov.

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