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RANSAC Nuclear News, February 19, 2003 Compiled by Lauren Arestie A. Cooperative Threat Reduction
 A. Cooperative Threat Reduction 1. Sam Nunn Among Peace Prize Nominees OSLO, Norway - Former Senator Sam Nunn is among 150 nominations that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has received for the 2003 award. Cuban human rights activist Oswaldo Paya Sardinas and Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng are among those named. So is former Illinois Gov. George Ryan -- for emptying his state's death row of 150 inmates. The Czech republic's outgoing president, Vaclav Havel, and France's President Jacques Chirac were also nominated, as was U-2's lead singer, Bono, and Pope John Paul II. Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar also became candidates. Since 1991, Lugar and Nunn have built up the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which has destroyed more than 6,000 nuclear warheads and thousands of missiles and launchers in the former Soviet Union. The Nobel Prize winners are named in mid-October and the awards are presented on Dec. 10. Former President Jimmy Carter was last year's winner. return to menu 2. Standing Guard As Allen Blancett walked through the subzero cold of a Moscow night, he wasn't sure what to expect. Standing in front of a rundown apartment building, he was uneasy. He had arranged an evening with a Russian family, but the entrance wasn't inviting. Soon, however, he was set at ease. "Inside their apartment, it's a new place," he said. "Warm and friendly and just real pleasant." That night, Mr. Blancett and his hosts shared a fine Russian meal. The children put on an impromptu piano recital. In the middle of the caviar and the vodka toasts, he could feel decades of icy enmity thawing. Throughout 20 years at Savannah River Site, he knew what the Soviet threat was: a vast nuclear arsenal atop missiles that could cross continents to deliver death to his doorstep. Today, the threat is different - not the Cold War's mutually assured destruction, but the horror of random terrorism. Mr. Blancett, a retired engineer who made a career at SRS producing plutonium for the arms race with the Soviets, is part of a new American presence in Russian nuclear affairs. Working with the Center for International Trade and Security, a University of Georgia institute concerned with the security of Russia's nuclear stockpile, he has made two trips behind old enemy lines in the past year. His mission on that frosty night in December was to get to know the Russians a little better. The goal was no longer producing plutonium, but understanding the hearts and minds of those who guard it. It takes only a pocketful of the deadly metal - and someone unscrupulous enough to steal it - to make all the difference to world peace. "There are bad guys out there who know where this stuff is," he said. Mr. Blancett's mission in Moscow was to help stop them. For those who have studied the Russian nuclear threat, the consequences are very real. "It was horrifying, actually. It made my hair stand on end," said investigative journalist Andrew Cockburn. He came of age in an England gripped by the terrorist campaigns of the Northern Irish and knew to be wary of unattended packages in the subway. Stories he uncovered researching the Russian nuclear threat after the fall of the Soviet Union, however, gave him goose flesh. During their research in the mid-1990s, Mr. Cockburn and his wife, Leslie, found the security at Russian nuclear installations so lax that someone could almost walk onto one, take what he wanted and vanish. The constant vigilance needed to keep terrorists at bay wasn't there. "I did think at that time, it's only a matter of time before someone takes a whack at us. We have to be lucky all of the time. They only have to be lucky once - that's what's scary," Mr. Cockburn said from his home in Washington. The Cockburn stories were collected in the nonfiction book One Point Safe,. The book became the basis for the fictionalized 1997 Hollywood nuclear-terror thriller The Peacemaker, in which Nicole Kidman and George Clooney saved the world. There's a big difference, Mr. Cockburn said, between nuclear materials in the hands of Pakistan, North Korea or Iraq and that possessed by terrorists. "What's lying around in Russia is more frightening because that can find its way into nonstate hands and the horrifying possibility of a nuclear Mohammed Atta," he said, referring to the al-Qaida leader allegedly behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Analyst Matthew Bunn, a high-level nuclear security expert in the Clinton White House, appears briefly in the Cockburns' accounts and sounds a similar alarm. "The thing that scares me the most is al-Qaida getting ahold of highly enriched uranium, making a nuclear bomb and setting it off in a U.S. city," Mr. Bunn said. "That would mean hundreds of thousands of people dead and the obliteration of a major U.S. city. That's just unacceptable, and we need to be moving as fast as we possibly can to reduce that probability." During the past decade, the United States has rushed to meet the challenge of loose Russian nuclear material with Cooperative Threat Reduction programs, usually called Nunn-Lugar programs after Sens. Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, who were among the first in the U.S. government to see the serious nature of the post-Soviet nuclear threat. Since 1992, the U.S. government has spent more than $2 billion in the former Soviet Union dismantling warheads, building better security at nuclear facilities, securing nuclear transport railcars and even purchasing Russian nuclear material outright to secure it in the United States. Since Sept. 11, 2001, much of the focus on terrorist attacks has turned toward defending the United States within its borders. Mr. Nunn said the nation needs to keep looking at the source. "Homeland security for America doesn't begin in America. It begins wherever there are dangerous nuclear materials (that) could be accessed by terrorist groups," Mr. Nunn said in a recent interview. "And that's where we've got to concentrate. And I think that realization is slow coming, but we're certainly more aware than we were as a nation before Sept. 11." Some experts say the Nunn-Lugar programs have been very successful, represent money well spent, and are an initial step in a long journey. "A farsighted politician should understand that after building the checkpoint, he should really invest in the training of the guards," said Igor Khripunov, the associate director of the University of Georgia institute that recruited Mr. Blancett to visit Russia. "As of now, we should go beyond building checkpoints and fences. ... We should deal with human souls." Mr. Khripunov uses the example of Chechen terrorists who recently drove their trucks, loaded with explosives, through three checkpoints on a mission that leveled a government building in the breakaway republic. He says the guards were either being lazy or were bought off. Those could be guards at a nuclear facility, he says. "It's the human factor - it's motivation," he said. Mr. Khripunov says one problem is outdated thinking. Those in charge of nuclear security are still focused on the Cold War threat of a spy, an outsider, coming into a facility to steal technology. "Now the situation is very different, and the Russian nuclear managers still do not recognize a threat from inside," he said. "They believe the people they work with are trustworthy, that they can rely on them. But at least a handful of (theft) cases were made public, and the people involved were mostly insiders." As a young man in Oklahoma, Mr. Blancett could stand on his front porch and watch the bombers make their training flights during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He would spend most of his working life on the front lines of the Cold War at SRS. "Before I got into the nuclear business, I knew of Russia though U.S. propaganda and political stuff, and I saw them as a country that was not trustable. They were warmongers. There was (Soviet Premier Nikita) Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the U.N. saying, 'We will bury you.' "And yet, you had to admit that they really could make weapons. I mean, they made big, big, monster weapons." He began to lose some of that grudging respect after he joined SRS in 1981. "I learned more and realized how they had sacrificed their economy and they had essentially destroyed parts of their environment when they dumped their waste into the lakes and stuff like that," Mr. Blancett said. "I guess I didn't really ever hate them. It was mostly just revulsion of what they did." But in December in Moscow, Mr. Blancett looked over a room of the Russian managers, some of whom surprised him by looking as American as he. They looked back at him and saw something they didn't expect - the American was very open, friendly, intelligent and professional. When Americans started pushing the Russians toward better nuclear security, UGA's Mr. Khripunov said, there was suspicion that the United States was trying to make Russia's nuclear program less competitive. Mr. Blancett is there to assure them that's not the case. He told them about the political climate in the United States, where people inside and outside the nuclear industry, greens and hawks alike, have come to an understanding that creates a more secure culture. "That delivers a message that if Russia wants to become part of the civilized Western world, this is really part of the bargain - they should really safeguard fissile material," Mr. Khripunov said. Mr. Blancett sold the message further by letting the managers get to know the person behind the professional. "Allen started by talking about his family," one of his students said later. "Russians would just start talking business." Mr. Blancett, Mr. Khripunov and others like them hope that someday, when the young managers are higher up in the Ministry of Atomic Energy, they still will have Mr. Blancett's values in their hearts and minds. That's hard to put on a ledger sheet for a donor, though. Funding such programs is always a problem. "One of the reasons why it is difficult to fund it is because you cannot quantify the results," Mr. Khripunov said. After 18 months of consideration, Mr. Nunn's Nuclear Threat Initiative denied Mr. Khripunov's request for $1.2 million over three years - or less than half of Mr. Clooney's reported $3 million salary for The Peacemaker - to continue the program. Mr. Nunn praised the program's good work but cited his group's financial hardships. "We are back to ground zero," Mr. Khripunov said, adding that they are looking for other funding sources. A lot can happen at ground zero, though. It can happen in a nondescript Russian atomic energy institute on the north side of Moscow with worn wooden floors and a little old woman guarding the front desk. Here, the future leaders of Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy - Minatom - are looking up at Mr. Blancett from their rows of spartan, Soviet-era desks for a little career development - and a chance to understand the American way a little better. "I really think this is one way I could have an impact on world peace, and that's awesome," Mr. Blancett said. It's something that people close to him have heard him say more than once, often with a catch in his throat and tears in his eyes. "If I can persuade future leaders to go in the right direction," he said, "I will have accomplished a whole lot." return to menu B. Nuclear Smuggling 1. Radioactive Materials Missing in Georgia TBILISI, Georgia - Three small containers containing radioactive materials are missing from a Georgian military base, officials confirmed Monday. The containers of cesium-137 disappeared in December from the Vaziani military base in this former Soviet republic, military prosecutor Mamuk Tsaav said. Authorities don't know exactly when the materials disappeared, so they have been unable to determine who was on guard duty at the time. Georgian officials did not say how much of the material was stolen or whether it was high-grade. Cesium-137 has a number of industrial and medical applications. It is often cited as one of the most likely substances that could be used in a so-called "dirty bomb," in which a conventional explosive device spreads radioactive material. Soso Kakushadze, head of the radiation security department of the Georgian Environment Ministry, said his department learned of the theft Monday and sent in experts but they were not allowed on the base. Kakushadze said the containers held calibrated instruments fueled by cesium. The instruments are used to measure radiation levels. Since the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991, there have been numerous thefts and attempts to smuggle out radioactive materials. return to menu C. Nuclear Cities 1. Keeping The Cities' Secrets Imagine that all the people who work at Savannah River Site, along with their families, schoolteachers and shopkeepers, lived in an opulent, top-secret city known only by a ZIP code - "South Carolina 29808." Imagine that no one was allowed in; that those inside were hardly allowed out; and that even the people in Jackson and Barnwell had no clue who lived inside the fence or what they did. This was life in Russia's 10 secret nuclear cities. Fifteen years ago, people who lived near the secret city of Zheleznogorsk had no idea what was manufactured in the factories under the low mountains across the river. They knew only of a secret land of luxury where the people were rich enough to eat chocolate whenever they wanted. "They live in a beautiful city - like something out of a fairy tale," said Galina Belovina, a school principal in nearby Atamanova who visited there once. "There's so much to say. Everything is convenient. There are three-story houses, wide streets, many different shops and stadiums." Today, the fairy tale has faded. Since the end of the Cold War, outsiders have learned that Zheleznogorsk is an underground nuclear-weapons operation with a failing economy and all the social ills that go with it. "The streets are still wide and clean, but the new problems are drug addiction, unemployment and budget shortfalls," said Russian journalist Alexander Kolotov, who covers life in the closed city. Zheleznogorsk is one of the poorest districts in the Ministry of Atomic Energy, says a retired scientist who still lives there. "The poverty is undermining security because the workers are so poorly paid," Anatoli Mamayev said. Experts say such poverty holds dangers for the rest of the world. The worst-case scenario is that a disaffected worker would sell his nuclear know-how to Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. The problem has spurred SRS' David Zigelman and others in the U.S. Department of Energy to create jobs for some of the Russians who work in the closed cities, in hope of giving them a good reason not to sell their nuclear talents. "We all knew who our enemies were," said Mr. Zigelman, who had spent his early career working against the Russian threat as a civilian attached to the U.S. military. "So that first time I went to Russia, and I late one night stood in Red Square looking up at the Kremlin, I said, 'What the heck am I doing here?' "What you quickly find is people are not enemies. Governments are enemies." Through DOE's Nuclear Cities Initiative, he leads Russian specialists through the process of creating civilian business plans, the best of which the U.S. government will finance. It can take months, sometimes years, and it is not always an easy sell. "I've heard things like, 'This economic conversion thing is too difficult - can we go back to the good old days?"' he said. "Well, there's no choice." Natalia Manzurova's parents were some of the first scientist-settlers at Ozersk, a closed city in the south Urals. "My mother and father came to the city in 1948, when they were both 20," Ms. Manzurova said. Six months after filling out a questionnaire, officials gave them three hours to pack their things and took them to a resort near the site of the Mayak plutonium plant. Later, they would be settled in the closed city. "When the specialists were needed, they were taken from the resort to the production site. They never knew where they were going," she said. Secrets abounded in the closed cities, and so did wealth. Nadja Kutepova, who grew up in Ozersk believing that her father worked in a candy-wrapper factory, not a bomb plant, remembers rare trips outside the fences. "When I left for Yekaterinburg to visit my grandmother, I was usually carrying lots of things - even milk - because there was none in Yekaterinburg," she said. "When I was a small child, Ozersk was a very nice place. We had good production, good shops." Nikolai Gidenko was one of the young construction soldiers who went to Ozersk in the 1950s to build dams along the Techa River for the nuclear operations. "We were young! We never worried, we were busy in the evenings buying vodka and finding girls," he said. The 68-year-old recalled that he and his comrades were given special coupons to buy such luxuries as sour cream, butter and chocolate. "We would spend it all on chocolate. We thought the special meals were to keep us strong for the hard work," he said. Long before Soviet secrecy crumbled in the late 1980s, however, Mr. Gidenko knew something was wrong. Every Thursday, a car came to their work site with a device that looked like an electric oven. "We took off our uniforms and boots and put them in the device," he said. "They would call out some numbers and maybe keep the clothes, but we were never told why." "It was just pure luck that I stayed healthy," Mr. Gidenko said. Ms. Manzurova said her 74-year-old father is still proud of the days he worked with atomic icons such as Igor Kurchatov and Lavrenty Beria, fathers of the Soviet nuclear program. "Radiation safety was bad, but he jokes about how many times there were accidents, and that to visit his friends he has to go to the cemetery," she says. Ms. Kutepova, the little girl who grew up in Ozersk carrying packages of goodies to her grandmother on the outside, is now a graduate student in sociology and studies the people in the closed cities. She tells of alcoholism and despair. She says the people of Ozersk still live in fear of the iron fist of the state and some still remember stints in Stalin's concentration camps. "For so many years they have developed the opinion that Mayak is a monster," Ms. Kutepova said. "It is not useful fighting it. It is such a monstrous organization that if you start asking for your rights, you are afraid to lose your job." Although she says 99 percent of the older generation is still very patriotic and believes in what it was doing, she was surprised to find in a recent survey that 63 percent of the people in Ozersk were against the import of spent nuclear fuel to the site - even though the project would mean essential jobs. She has worked to create social programs, including sex education, prenatal care and ecological awareness. She wants to tackle unemployment in Ozersk and is interested in the Nuclear Cities work such as SRS' Mr. Zigelman is doing. But she's skeptical. "We have many questions about the program," Ms. Kutepova said. "If the Americans want scientists to change their profession, then people should move from these places - because the place accounts for the mentality." Hovering over an operation from a stepladder at Medical College of Georgia Hospital, Dr. Alexander Kozyrin leans in to admire his American colleague's economical use of silk in his closing stitches. "You suture like a Russian," Dr. Kozyrin tells Dr. Tom Gadacz, the director of surgery at MCG, through an interpreter. Dr. Gadacz and the others get a chuckle out of the sideways compliment. It's part of the giddiness that comes along with doing their bit to save the world. That is how Dr. Gadacz and his colleagues look at the work they have done through the Nuclear Cities Initiative programs at SRS. Ever since Dr. Gadacz and the Americans helped install a laparoscopy unit - a much less invasive type of surgery - in the closed city of Sarov in 2001, the Russians have performed more than 500 operations with it. The Nuclear Cities Initiative is one of several U.S. programs designed to stop the spread of lethal nuclear materials and knowledge out of the former Soviet Union. Mr. Zigelman says he has "hit a home run" by reaching out to MCG for medical expertise, in addition to the work of business professors at the University of South Carolina Aiken who have helped build training programs in Sarov. "In the end, the NCI program is to help shut down the nuclear facilities and make sure the scientists and engineers don't go elsewhere," Mr. Zigelman said. "Well, if you can improve the infrastructure and medical programs, you've provided another argument for the brains to stay at home." Mr. Zigelman and DOE are helping shut down the Avangard nuclear weapons facility in Sarov and have created jobs for some of the displaced specialists. Projects funded by Nuclear Cities in Sarov include one that is selling titanium parts for prostheses to a company in California - some of which are sold in the Augusta area under brand names such as Ohio Willow Wood and FlexFoot. Another is doing high-tech work to remove harmful chemicals from the Russian electrical transmission system. There are a few rules, including one of Mr. Zigelman's personal guidelines that requires the ideas come from the Russians, not from him. "Otherwise, they have no ownership of it," he said. The program, begun in 1998, has had an uphill battle for funds and political support. Now, as it nears the end of its first operating agreement, it has been criticized by Russian and American experts, including the U.S. General Accounting Office, for creating jobs too slowly or expensively or concentrating on the wrong kinds of enterprises. "I think that the program got off on the wrong foot by saying we were going to create all these jobs in the first year, because the problem is very hard," said Kenneth Luongo, of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, whose 1997 report helped create the program. "It is very hard to create jobs in Russia when you're not behind a triple-security fence, and it's even more difficult to do it behind a triple-security fence." Mr. Luongo said the program should apply Russian expertise to problems such as nuclear security or environmental cleanup. "Someone ought to be paying these guys to think creatively about how to deal with these questions, as opposed to trying to build a kidney dialysis plant in a place where you used to manufacture nuclear weapons," he said. As for the expense, Mr. Zigelman said, the overall cost is small compared with the full scope of nonproliferation programs. "They say it may be cheaper if you took the money and just gave it to the scientists and the engineers there," he said. "But what happens when you stop sending the checks?" Mr. Zigelman said the Nuclear Cities Initiative is getting better at cutting costs and creating more jobs. He also says that the program, charged with employing people with deadly nuclear knowledge, has a value that may be hard to quantify. "By creating a job, have we given the guy back some self-esteem to where he'll never go work for the other country? I hope so," Mr. Zigelman said. "What's that worth?" return to menu D. Plutonium Disposition 1. MOX Program's Fate Rests In Russia Its supporters say it could mean billions in local investment and hundreds of good jobs for the Augusta area. Critics say it's a bigger risk than the nuclear terrorism it is intended to help prevent. Both sides agree that the future of a mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel facility at Savannah River Site isn't likely to be decided in Aiken or Washington, but 5,000 miles away - in Moscow. MOX's future in Russia, however, is far from decided. Burdened with a ponderous bureaucracy and a troubling nuclear safety record, the program could collapse under the weight or fail to attract the international funding it needs, some experts say. The MOX program, which would make plutonium unusable for weapons by blending it into fuel for power-generating nuclear reactors, was first agreed on in 1998 by the United States and Russia. Each country pledged to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium in "parallel" programs. The program's local boosters, while optimistic, are aware of the problems. They realize that a failure of MOX in Russia would almost certainly kill it at SRS. "I'm sort of sitting on the fence here, waiting to see what happens," said Mal McKibben of Aiken's Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness. "From the beginning I've said that was the Achilles' heel in the whole program, and it still is." Talk of MOX began in the early 1990s, when the thought of tons of loose Russian plutonium - 14 pounds of which could produce a Nagasaki-type blast - alarmed politicians and analysts in Washington. Plutonium is potential gold on the black market, and Russian security was more sieve than iron curtain. Fear that plutonium might slip out of Russian facilities into Chechen or Iraqi hands spurred President Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin to make the deal, to be funded largely by the United States and its Western allies. While the United States has made progress toward a MOX program by choosing Savannah River as its site, steadily increasing funding and wading through the political and regulatory gauntlet that included South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges' unsuccessful 2002 lawsuit to block plutonium shipments, the Russians have shown much less resolve. Nearly five years into the program, the Russians had yet to develop blueprints or a site for the facility. In the past two months, Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy - or Minatom - has finally made some progress. Its officials agreed to use the same plant design as the United States, and they finally chose a site. But two weeks later, the site's operating license was yanked by another nuclear regulatory agency, which cited serious, habitual pollution. Such glitches are heartening to MOX critics, who say the program's many dangers - from transporting the plutonium to burning the MOX fuel - make the cure scarier than the disease. Some analysts even see the Russian morass as a sure sign of the program's eventual demise. One top Russian nuclear critic is so convinced the program is dead that he has stopped bothering to protest. "The money will never be there, so MOX will not be a problem," says Vitaly Khizhnyak, who once served in the Russian nuclear regulatory agency Gosatomnadzor. Mr. Khizhnyak agrees that something must be done to make Russia's plutonium stockpile more secure, but he says the way to do that is to build and maintain secure facilities. "Some people in Minatom agree, but not everyone. They say they need it for profit," he said. According to Matthew Bunn, a nonproliferation expert at Harvard University, some in Minatom would be happy to kill MOX and keep the plutonium until its use as a commercial fuel is perfected, while others would like to pursue MOX to gain expertise in using plutonium for commercial ventures. "Very few people in Minatom see it as a serious proliferation/disarmament problem in the way the United States does," Mr. Bunn said. Nuclear activist Vladimir Mikheev, who, like Mr. Khizhnyak, has toured SRS to learn more about the issue, says Minatom's view on the value of plutonium - that it is far too dear to waste on MOX - makes the group's motives even more suspect. "Minatom believes that weapons plutonium is the treasure of Russia. Even if Minatom takes responsibility for MOX, they will take America's money and never complete the program," he said. American officials close to MOX negotiations say the United States wants something concrete from Russia in time for a June summit of the world's leading economic powers, who have pledged financial support for the program. But no ultimatums are in place, nor is there any thought that MOX will not move forward. The continued support of the international investors is key to the project's realization. Minatom has no timetable for making decisions on its MOX program, according to Vladislav Petrov, the spokesman for Minatom's office of international relations. "There are a lot of questions unsettled," Dr. Petrov said in a December interview with The Augusta Chronicle. But he also said there is "constant contact" between the directors of the Department of Energy and Minatom about MOX. "We understand each other quietly," he said. U.S. officials are more openly confident. "What I think is going to happen over the next several years is that we're going to break ground roughly on schedule, we're going to build the facility roughly on schedule, and we're going to eliminate the material roughly on schedule, and the Russians are going to be roughly parallel," said Ambassador Linton Brooks, the director of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration and a former arms negotiator. Mr. Brooks says proof of the progress is in the DOE 2004 budget request, in which the fissile materials disposition program was tagged for $657 million - a 46.5 percent increase over the 2003 request, easily the largest increase for any program in the agency this year. "It's a big, complex effort, both diplomatically and technically - so there will be adjustments along the way - but I'm very optimistic and very pleased," Mr. Brooks said. Officials close to the negotiations caution that there are important questions over the technology - and how to fund it - to be solved on the Russian side before the program moves forward. A particular concern, they say, is limiting American liability for any accident that might happen at a site involved in the joint U.S.-Russian program. "I think it will keep muddling forward, one way or another," said Mr. Bunn, the Harvard analyst. And, while he doesn't believe the two sides will turn away from MOX, he says the situation is still dicey. "Plutonium disposition has a long, hard row to hoe," Mr. Bunn said. return to menu E. Russia-U.S. 1. Nuclear Energy, Not Oil, Should Fuel US-Russian Ties Since the Iron Curtain came crashing down, American and Russian diplomats have been searching for a special relationship between their countries to replace Cold War animosity. Security matters have not yielded much. On issues such as the expansion of NATO, stabilizing Yugoslavia and the war in Chechnya, the two have sought each other's tolerance more than co-operation. Nor have the two nations developed much economic interaction, as a result of Russia's weak institutions and faltering economy. Thus, by default, "energy" has become the new special topic in Russian-American relations. This enthusiasm is misplaced, however. A collapse of oil prices in the aftermath of an invasion of Iraq may soon lay bare the countries' divergent interests. Russia needs high oil prices to keep its economy afloat, whereas US policy would be largely unaffected by falling energy costs. Moreover, cheerleaders of a new Russian-American oil partnership fail to understand that there is not much the two can do to influence the global energy market or even investment in Russia's oil sector. The focus on oil has also eclipsed another area in which US and Russian common interests could run deeper: nuclear power. Joint efforts to develop new technologies for generating nuclear power and managing nuclear waste could result in a huge payoff for both countries. These issues, which are the keys to keeping nuclear power viable, are formally on the Russian-American political agenda, but little has been done to tap the potential for co-operation. Given Russia's scientific talent and the urgent need to reinvigorate nuclear non-proliferation programmes, a relatively minor commitment of diplomatic and financial resources could deliver significant long-term benefits to the United States. On the surface, energy co-operation seems a wise choice. Russia is rich in hydrocarbons and the US wants them. Oil and gas account for two-fifths of Russian exports. Last year, Russia reclaimed its status, last held in the late 1980s, as the world's top oil producer. Its oil output this year is expected to top eight million barrels per day and is on track to rise further. Russian oil firms also made their first shipments to US markets last year - some symbolically purchased as part of US efforts to augment its strategic petroleum reserve. In addition, four Russian oil companies are preparing a new, large port in Murmansk as part of a plan to supply more than 10 per cent of total US oil imports within a decade. Meanwhile, the US remains the world's largest consumer and importer of oil. This year, it will import about 60 per cent of the oil it burns, and the US Energy Information Administration expects foreign dependence will rise to about 70 per cent by 2010, and continue inching upwards thereafter. Although the US economy is much less sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices than it was three decades ago, diversification and stability in world oil markets are a constant worry. War jitters and political divisions cast a long shadow over the Persian Gulf, source of one-quarter of the world's oil. In Nigeria, the largest African oil exporter, sectarian violence periodically not only interrupts oil operations but also sent Miss World contestants packing last year. A scheme by Latin America's top producer, Venezuela, to pump up its share of world production helped trigger a collapse in world oil prices in the late 1990s and ushered in the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez. Last year, labour strikes aimed at unseating Mr Chavez shut Venezuela's ports and helped raise prices to more than US$30 (HK$234) a barrel. Next to these players, Russia is a paragon of stability. The aftermath of a war in Iraq would probably provide a first test for the shallow new Russian-American partnership. Most attention on Russian interests in Iraq has focused on two issues: Iraq's lingering Soviet-era debt, variously measured at US$7 billion to US$12 billion, and the dominant position of Russian companies in controlling leases for several Iraqi oilfields. Both are red herrings. No company that has signed lease deals with Saddam Hussein's government could believe those rights are secure. Russia's top oil company, Lukoil, knew that when it met Iraqi opposition leaders in an attempt to hedge its bets for possible regime change. (Saddam's discovery of those contacts proved the point: he cancelled, then later reinstated, Lukoil's interests in the massive Western Kurna field.) Russian officials have pressed the US to guarantee the existing contracts, but officials have wisely demurred. There would be no faster way to confirm Arab suspicions that regime change is merely a cover for taking control of Iraq's oil than by awarding the jewels before a new government is known and seated. Of course, the impact of a war on world oil supply and price is hard to predict. A long war and a tortuous rebuilding process could deprive the market of Iraqi crude oil (about two million barrels a day, last year). Damage to nearby fields in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could make oil even more scarce. And already tight inventories and continued troubles in Venezuela could deliver a "perfect storm" of soaring oil prices. The most plausible scenario, however, is bad news for Russia: a brief war, quickly followed by increased Iraqi exports, along with a clear policy of releasing oil from America's reserves to deter speculators. A more lasting Russian-American energy agenda would focus on subjects beyond the current, fleeting common interest in oil. To find an area in which dialogue can truly make a difference, Russia and the US should look to the subject that occupied much of their effort in the 1990s, but that both sides neglected too quickly: nuclear power. With the end of the Cold War, the two nations created a multi-billion-dollar program to sequester Russia's prodigious quantities of fissile material and nuclear technology. The goal was to prevent these "loose nukes" from falling into the hands of terrorists or hostile states. The Co-operative Threat Reduction program also included funds to employ Russian scientists through joint research projects and academic exchanges. Inevitably, it has failed to meet all its goals. In a country where central control has broken down and scientific salaries have evaporated, it is difficult to halt the departure of every nuclear resource. Nor is it surprising that US appropriators have failed to deliver the billions of dollars promised for the collective endeavour. Other priorities have constantly intervened, and Russia's uneven record in complying with arms control agreements has made appropriation of funds a perpetual congressional battle. Various good ideas for reinvigorating the program have gone without funding and bureaucratic attention - even in the post-September 11 political environment, in which practically any idea for fighting terrorism can get money. Russia has opened nuclear waste encapsulation and storage facilities near Krasnoyarsk, raising the possibility of creating an international storage site for nuclear waste. This topic has long been taboo, but it is an essential issue to raise if the global nuclear power industry is to move beyond the inefficiencies of small-scale nuclear waste management. Russia should also be brought into worldwide efforts to design new nuclear reactors. The global nuclear research community, under US leadership, has outlined comprehensive and implementable plans for the next generation of fission reactors. The Russian nuclear program is one of the world's leaders in handling the materials necessary for new reactor designs. Yet Russia is not currently a member of the US government-led Generation IV International Forum, one of the main vehicles for international co-operation on fission reactors and their fuel cycles. Top US priorities must include integrating Russia into that effort, endorsing Russia's relationships with other key nuclear innovators (such as Japan), and delivering on the promise made at last summer's G8 meeting of leaders of the world's biggest economies - to help Russia secure its nuclear materials. For opponents of nuclear power, no plan will be acceptable. But the emerging recognition that global warming is a real threat demands that nations develop serious, environmentally friendly energy alternatives. Of all the major options available today, only nuclear power and hydroelectricity offer usable energy with essentially zero emissions of greenhouse gases. Neither government should be naive about the sustainability of this endeavour. Russia is not an ideal partner because its borders have been a sieve for nuclear know-how and because its nuclear managers are suspected of abetting the outflow. Thus, plans for nuclear waste storage, for example, must ensure that they render the waste a minimal threat for proliferation. The US must also be more mindful of Russian sensitivity to co-operation on matters that, to date, have been military secrets. Another difficult issue that both nations must confront is Russia's relationship with Iran. A perennial thorn in ties, Russia's nuclear co-operation with officials in Tehran owes much not just to Iranian money but to the complex relationship between the two countries over drilling and export routes for Caspian oil. This link to Iran cannot be wished away, as it is rooted in Russia's very geography. Any sustainable nuclear partnership between the US and Russia must develop a political strategy to handle this reality. The world, including the US, needs the option of viable nuclear power. Yet Russia's talented scientists and nuclear resources sit idle, ready for action. return to menu F. Russia-Iran 1. Iran Considers Russia's Assistance In Building Bushehr's 2nd Reactor Tehran - Iran that has achieved great success in mastering the complicated nuclear science technology from mining uranium, to production of nuclear reactors' fuel, according to President Khatami, is now studying foreign assistance in building its 2nd nuke reactor in Bushehr. A delegation of the Russian Nuclear Energy Ministry is on a brief visit to Iran, for discussing bilateral cooperation on the said project, it was announced here on Monday. Deputy Nuclear Energy Minister Andrei Malyshev leads the delegation, which began talks with the Iranian Nuclear Energy Organization on Monday. Sources told Itar-Tass that the discussion would center on Russian-assisted construction of the 2nd nuclear power plant in Bushehr. The delegation will not visit the construction site as was originally planned, and will return to Moscow early on Tuesday. Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev earlier told Itar-Tass that, if Iran declared an international tender for the construction of six reactors on its territory, "Russia will participate in it, and we have every chance of winning". "Russia is continuing the construction of the station's first unit in Bushehr, which does not violate any international accords and does not pose a threat of proliferation of nuclear technology," Rumyantsev stressed. He said "last year the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) carried out 60 checks in Iran, and did not register any violations." Moscow and Tehran signed a contract for the construction of the Bushehr Plant in 1995. Russia is to receive about 1 billion dollars for the work. Iran stands for freeing the region from weapons of mass destruction, and does not have nuclear arms programs, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Sunday. At the same time, Iran is proud of the achievements of its atomic energy scientists and specialists. All the activities of Iran in the sphere of nuclear technologies are under the control of the IAEA, and the more so since Iran has signed related agreements and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the minister said. The IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei visits Iran to discuss a number of issues, including allegations made by the US that two nuclear facilities under construction could be used to make atomic weapons from February 23 to 26. The United States had said last Monday that Iran's admission that it is mining uranium added to already "grave concerns" that the country is secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program. "We continue to have very grave concerns that Iran is using its supposedly peaceful nuclear program, including construction of a reactor at Bushehr, as a pretext for advancing a nuclear weapons program," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. His comments followed an announcement on Sunday by Iran's President Seyed Mohammad Khatami that Tehran had discovered uranium deposits near the central city of Yazd and had already taken steps to begin exploiting them. He said a uranium oxide plant had been completed in the central city of Isfahan and that it would be complemented by an enrichment plant now under construction near Kashan to its north. President Khatami also said work had begun in Yazd province on a plant to produce concentrated "yellow cake," while a further facility at an undisclosed location would complete the cycle by turning out finished fuel entirely made in Iran. But he insisted that Iran was only interested in the uranium for power generation and repeated assertions that it remained committed to a peaceful nuclear program. Washington has long complained to Russia over its nuclear cooperation with Iran, particularly on the construction of the reactor in the southern port of Bushehr, warning that it is an unacceptable proliferation risk. Last year, in response to those concerns Moscow informed Washington that the return of all spent fuel is a stated condition in working on the nuclear projects of Iran. return to menu 2. Eduard Shevardnadze: Georgian Nuclear Scientists Working in Iran TBILISI - A number of Georgian scientists, including nuclear physicists and aircraft engineers, are working in Iran on private contracts that have not been authorized by the government, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze revealed last week. AP reports that according to Shevardnadze, his government had informed the US administration that some of the workers from the Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology had moved to Iran. Some retired engineers from the Tbilisi aircraft plant are also working in Iran to help refurbish the combat aircraft that Georgia supplied to Iran in the early 1990s, he said. Shevardnadze said his government can do little, because the Georgians are working in Iran as private citizens. He said the issue should be resolved in a way that will not "spoil relations with Iran", but will also satisfy "the legitimate concerns of the Americans." The US administration has dubbed Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, saying Tehran is striving to develop nuclear weapons. International nuclear inspectors have been troubled by the disappearance of weapons-grade uranium from the Sukhumi institute - the only known case of missing bomb uranium in the world, according to data maintained by California's Monterey Institute of International Studies. The Sukhumi institute's cache of uranium vanished after separatists in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia took over Sukhumi in 1993, driving out the Georgian government forces. The separatists have made Sukhumi their capital and run their own affairs, defying Georgia's claim on Abkhazia. A 1993 inventory indicated there were 655 grams of the material at the site, and US non-proliferation specialists say Georgian sources report that it may actually have totaled 2 kilograms. Georgian authorities say they have no idea whether illicit traffickers, well-intentioned scientists or others took the material. Nuclear non-proliferation experts were also concerned that equipment and know-how from the Sukhumi institute might provide crucial assistance to any nation aspiring to become a nuclear power. It was scientists who fled Sukhumi that helped Ukraine develop its own centrifuge-enrichment technology in the 1990s. Shevardnadze is the first official to publicly acknowledge that Sukhumi nuclear physicists were working in Iran. He did not provide any details on how many experts from the institute had gone to Iran and what they were doing there. return to menu G. Russia-DPRK 1. Russian Official Insists On North Korea-U.S. Talks MOSCOW - A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman reiterated on Tuesday Moscow's insistence on urgent efforts, mainly a direct dialogue between North Korea and the United States, to resolve the crisis caused by Pyongyang's decision to resume its nuclear program. In an interview with Interfax, Alexander Yakovenko mentioned North Korea's threat to withdraw from a truce agreement that has maintained peace on the Korean peninsula since 1953. He pointed out that this threat was a response to threats of a sea blockade of North Korea and imposing sanctions against it. The agreement, signed between U.S.-led UN armed forces and the Korean People's Army and Chinese volunteers is "the main and only guarantee of peace and stability on the peninsula, it determines the regime of a conventional border (Demilitarized Zone) between North and South," Yakovenko said. "The fact that this agreement has still not been replaced by any more substantial document is evidence of an unstable situation in Korea and of the fact that relations primarily between the main conflicting parties, [North Korea] and the U.S., remain unsettled. "The escalation of militant rhetoric won't likely help settle the situation that has taken shape on the Korean peninsula, something that Russia has stated more than once. In this respect, we believe that there is an even more imperative need for an urgent search for a negotiated solution to security problems in Korea, primarily via a direct dialogue between [North Korea] and the U.S." return to menu 2. Russia's Good Graces With North Korea On Trial MOSCOW - Following the North Korean threat of striking US targets anywhere in the world, the Russian capital witnessed the weird scene of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his Pyongyang counterpart Ryang Man-kil opening a cultural event featuring portraits of North Korea's Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Technically, Pyongyang mayor Ryang's trip to Moscow was just a reciprocity visit. Last December, Luzhkov traveled to the North Korean capital Pyongyang. Luzhkov has argued that exchanges with Pyongyang have "no political significance". Coincidentally, South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun's special envoy, Millennium Democrat Chough Soon-hyung, happened to be in Moscow and reportedly indicated the desire to meet with Pyongyang's delegation. However, there have been no reports of such a meeting taking place in Moscow. Earlier this week, two delegations of Roh's transition team were dispatched to Moscow and Beijing to help seek a solution to the North Korean nuclear issue and to provide briefings on Roh's policies. Roh is a supporter of Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy of engaging the communist North. In Moscow, Chough's delegation, which includes Chang Young-dal, chairman of the National Assembly's defense committee, is to meet Russian foreign ministry officials and legislators, and a meeting with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is tentatively slated for Saturday. However, there are no plans of a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Roh's special envoy. Contrariwise, the delegation to China headed by Lee Hai-chan, a Millennium Democrat lawmaker, and including the adviser for national security, Lee Jong-seok, was reportedly received by China's Jiang Zemin. Russia and China, two permanent Security Council members with veto power, are seen as unlikely to back sanctions. Russia says that it plans to launch fresh efforts to encourage direct talks between the United States and North Korea. South Korea has already asked Moscow to mediate in the crisis on the Korean peninsula, and Putin has repeatedly promised Moscow's assistance. On January 25, Kim Dae-jung telephoned Putin to discuss the North's nuclear stand-off with the US. Putin stressed "the principal importance of continuing the inter-Korean process", such as ministerial-level talks in Seoul between the two Koreas. However, the inter-Korean process has remained somewhat stalled, while dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions has somewhat escalated. On Wednesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) 35-nation board of governors in an emergency closed-door session in Vienna passed a resolution declaring North Korea in noncompliance of its obligations under international accords and referring the dispute to the Security Council. The IAEA's move opens the way for economic sanctions or other punitive measures against the country, which Pyongyang has made clear it would regard as an act of war. The IAEA's decision was a "premature and counterproductive move that doesn't help to establish a constructive dialogue between the interested parties", the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. Moscow was ready to support the nuclear agency's decision if it would help Washington and Pyongyang "establish a direct dialogue" at the sidelines of the Security Council, it said. Therefore, the Kremlin tends to back Pyongyang's insistence that the issue is merely a Washington-Pyongyang matter. Russia's deputy foreign minister Alexander Losyukov stated that referring the North Korean nuclear stand-off to the UN Security Council is "counterproductive". The North Koreans have told us about their desire to hold a dialogue with the United States, the RIA news agency quoted Losyukov as saying. Losyukov said that Russia in the near future will try to take a series of steps aimed at clearing up the situation and see what could be done for dialogue to resume between the the US and North Korea. Last month, Losyukov held what he then described as successful and "very substantive" six-hour talks with Kim Jong-il. Losyukov visited North Korea on January 18-20 with a Russian proposal, including nuclear-free status for the Korean peninsula, security guarantees for North Korea and an aid package. After meeting Kim, Losyukov announced in Moscow that officials in Pyongyang had assured him that North Korea did not develop nuclear weapons. However, in recent weeks Moscow has somewhat toned down its official optimism over the North Korean crisis. A worst-case scenario of military confrontation on the peninsula "cannot be excluded", Losyukov has told journalists in Moscow. Losyukov also argued that "hypothetically there could be a war" on the peninsula. Earlier this week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov warned that the danger in the nuclear crisis over North Korea could be much greater than the Iraq situation. "North Korea is a sovereign state, we reject any pressure on a sovereign state, and now is the time for active diplomacy," Ivanov said. In Washington, US intelligence officials told Congress that North Korea has an untested, three-stage version of its Taepo Dong 2 missile capable of hitting the western US. CIA director George Tenet also told the senators that "it's a very good judgment" that North Korea has already built one or two nuclear weapons. Without flight-testing, the reliability of such a missile remains anybody's guess. For several years, North Korea has held to a voluntary moratorium on flight tests of its long-range missiles, although Pyongyang may renew them at any time. Hence the Kremlin's contribution has so far been limited to calls for dialogue and restraint. Moreover, Moscow allowed itself a muted criticism of the US policy in Northeast Asia. In the words of the mouthpiece of the Kremlin, the RIA news agency, the UN Security Council hearings on North Korea are likely to include unsubstantiated claims about Pyongyang from the US. The American diplomacy, which has already suffered moral defeat on Iraq, is now facing yet another setback related to North Korea, RIA commented. The incomprehensible" Korean policy of President George W Bush entailed an Iraq-like crisis and Washington should re-think its "inadequate" Korean policy, the agency said. Moscow's close relationship with Pyongyang is understood to be one of its few remaining sources of influence in East Asia and it will be reluctant to end that. Russia has been trying to advise North Korea on how to deal with Washington. In return, Russia hopes to benefit when North Korea's economy opens up. Earlier this week a delegation of North Korean foreign trade ministry officials traveled to the Kamchatka region in the Russian far east. According to Vladimir Obukhov, head of the regional department of industry, the North Koreans were interested in the joint development of Kamchatka's fishery and mineral resources. The timing of the North Korean trade mission sounds strange indeed. However, one should bear in mind that during the Soviet era scores of long-range missiles were launched in European Russia and from nuclear submarines, while most of these flight tests were intended to hit targets at Kamchatka's military sites. So far, there have been no rumors that the North Koreans could have been thinking about flight-testing their Taepo Dong 2 missiles using Kamchatka's sites. return to menu H. Nuclear Submarine Disposition 1. Russia And Japan Agreed To Sign Shortly A Victor III NS Disposition Contract Russia and Japan agreed to start working shortly on disposition of one Shchuka 671 RTM nuclear submarine (Victor III in NATO classification). The decision was made at the meeting of the Bilateral Committee for cooperation to assist in elimination of nuclear weapons to be reduced in the Russian Federation. As Nuclear.Ru was informed by Victor Akhunov, Head of Department for Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities of Minatom of Russia, the Russian delegation at the negotiations had been headed by Sergei Antipov, Deputy Minister of the RF for Atomic Energy, the Japanese delegation being led by the Ambassador of Japan to Russia. At the meeting the Committee discussed further steps to facilitate signing of the contract to dispose one multipurpose Victor III nuclear sub and the project to modernize Smolyaninovo-Bolshoi Kamen railway section. Major work on nuclear sub disposition is done at "Zvezda" shipyard in Bolshoi Kamen, Primorski Krai. Last year a NS nuclear fuel unloading complex was built and commissioned there with the US financial participation. "The problem is that it is necessary to ship off the fuel to make the complex operate efficiently. But the railway is in very poor conditions. Therefore, three years ago we proposed Japan to fund modernization of 27 kilometers of section running from Bolshoi Kamen to Smolyaninovo junction." - said Mr. Akhunov. The Committee discussed ways of operative interaction between the sides, in particular the setting up a joint Russia-Japan working group by this April. "Both sides showed interest in expedite signing of the contract for the nuclear sub disposition to report on actual results by the next G8 Summit." - stated the Minatom of Russia representative. He also commented that after the delay of the last October "the situation is going back to normal and significant progress is foreseen". return to menu I. Nuclear Industry 1. Russia Is To Participate In Construction Of NPP Near Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan Russia is going to participate in construction of a nuclear power plant at the Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan. As reported by RIA-Novosty, the President Vladimir Putin informed about that after negotiations held in the Kremlin with the Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. According to President Putin, Russia and Kazakhstan intend to "deepen bilateral business cooperation. It primarily relates to joint work in the field of nuclear power and, in particular, construction with the Russian participation of a nuclear power plant in the Lake Balkhash region." The construction of NPP near the Lake Balkhash was envisaged by the state nuclear power and industry development program targeted to 2003. The project supposed building of three power units with VVER-640 reactors of total power 2,000 MW and designed service life of 60 years. The estimated construction term is 1998 to 2030. The anticipated earnings from the NPP operation are more than US$ 1 B. Canada, the USA, France, Russia and Germany have shown their interest in the project. The St. Peterburg-based NII Atompoekt institute had completed by 2000 the feasibility study to justify the NPP construction project at the Lake Balkhash. It was planned to spend US$ 5 B to construct the power plant. September 26, 2000 the Government of Kazakhstan rejected the Balkhash NPP construction project due to, among others, high construction costs, operational costs and negative public perception. However, the governmental decree of August 20, 2002 approved the "Concept of Development of Uranium Mining Industry and Nuclear Power in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2002-2003", which envisaged the development of a NPP project at the Lake of Balkhash. In late 2002, the Balkhash NPP project was submitted to the Parliament for consideration, but the ultimate decision has not been taken yet. return to menu J. Announcements 1. On the 16th Meeting of the Board of the Russian-Japanese Cooperation Committee for Assistance in the Field of Nuclear Weapons Liquidation The 16th Meeting of the Board of the Russian-Japanese Cooperation Committee for Assistance in the Field of the Liquidation of Nuclear Weapons Subject to Reduction in the Russian Federation was held in Moscow on February 16. Officials from Russia's Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Atomic Energy and from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy in Moscow took part. The sides reiterated their intention to build on cooperation under the G8 Global Partnership with regard to the disposal of decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines. They reached agreement to begin soon work on the project for disposal of one Viktor III-type nuclear submarine and to exert the necessary efforts for realization of the project for modernizing the railway on the Smolyaninovo-Bolshoi Kamen section for the safe transportation of waste nuclear materials. Decisions were taken to improve the mechanism for coordinating the sides' actions to speed the implementation of the joint projects. The results of the meeting are an important step along the road of practical implementation of the Russian-Japanese Plan of Action, adopted in the course of the visit to Moscow of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi this January, and of the G8 Global Partnership accords, approved in Kananaskis, Canada. return to menu 2. Statement by Ambassador Grigory Berdennikov in Explanation of Vote on the IAEA Board of Governors' Resolution on the DPRK The Russian delegation took a decision to abstain in the vote on the draft resolution on the IAEA Director General's Report concerning the implementation of the IAEA-DPRK Safeguards Agreement Pursuant to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Russia's principled stand in this matter had repeatedly been stated by us in various international fora, including at Board of Governors meetings: we stand firmly for the denuclearized status of the Korean Peninsula and the need to solve the DPRK nuclear problem solely by politico-diplomatic means. It should be stressed that we proceed from the necessity of ensuring compliance by the DPRK with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and recently for our part we have been exerting vigorous efforts for ensuring just this kind of scenario. The results of this continuing diplomatic process, and, in particular, I would like in this regard to note the mission of Alexander Losyukov, special representative of the President of the Russian Federation and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Pyongyang, enable us to say that a solution of the North Korean problem on the basis of the elements of a "package" solution proposed by Russia is quite feasible. As Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov noted in his message to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, dated January 20, 2003, "Under these conditions we would consider undesirable ... the referral of this matter to the Security Council of the United Nations because this could upset the delicate process of the search for solutions to the mutual concerns." The Russian delegation is against the inclusion in the resolution of the first provision of point 5 of the operative part of the draft resolution, which envisages the sending - in the present situation - of the Director General's report on noncompliance by the DPRK with the Safeguards Agreement, and on the Agency's being unable to verify the non-transfer of nuclear materials falling under the safeguards, to the Security Council of the United Nations. We consider the referral of this matter to the UN Security Council a premature and counterproductive step which does not contribute to fostering a constructive and confidential dialogue of the concerned parties with a view to a peaceful resolution of the situation around the Korean Peninsula, including the DPRK nuclear problem. Therefore the Russian delegation abstained from the vote. While we in no way cast doubt on the importance of compliance with all the provisions of the Statute of the Agency, including its Article XII.C, which is cited in the point of the draft I mentioned, we do not agree that it is necessary to report to the Security Council right now. We were prepared to support the draft resolution in the event of the establishment of a direct dialogue between the USA and the DPRK in New York. Russia presumes that there is no alternative to a peaceful negotiated resolution of the crisis, nor can there be. In our conviction, the chief element of a diplomatic solution of the "nuclear problem" of the DPRK should be a direct dialogue between the DPRK and the USA. For its part Russia is willing to do everything possible to help establish this dialogue, and we call upon the other members of the Board of Governors to do so. In this case we support the idea of holding negotiations, both in a bilateral and in a multilateral format, if this will suit all the parties. We have come up with an initiative to form a structure of security guarantees for the DPRK in which not only the USA and the DPRK, but also Russia, China and other countries could take part; we have submitted proposals for a "package solution" of the problem. Now there is a particular need to activate the entire possible arsenal of diplomatic means with respect for the lawful interests of all the parties, without pressure and an escalation of tensions. return to menu DISCLAIMER: Nuclear News is presented for informational purposes only. Views presented in any given article are those of the individual author or source and not of RANSAC. RANSAC takes no responsibility for the technical accuracy of information contained in any article presented in Nuclear News. RANSAC's Nuclear News is compiled two to three times weekly. 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