Nonproliferation News - December 23, 2009

FISSILE MATERIAL
AP Interview: Rice says NKorea is feeling pressure
AP by Edith M. Lederer

Stalemate: How Obama's Iran Outreach Failed
Time by Tony Karon

This is no smoking gun, nor Iranian bomb
Guardian by Norman Dombey

US: Arms talks with Russia to drag into 2010
AP by Bradley S. Klapper

EAST ASIA
1. S.Korea: Nuclear talks need to resume soon
UPI
The stalled six-nation talks on North Korea's denuclearization must resume by the end of February or the process may end, South Korea's foreign minister said.

2. AP Interview: Rice says NKorea is feeling pressure
AP by Edith M. Lederer
Tough U.N. sanctions are putting pressure on North Korea to halt its nuclear program, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday.

3. Secret Japan-U.S. nuclear pact documents kept by former prime minister's family
Mainichi Daily News
A secret pact between Japan and the United States allowing the United States to introduce nuclear weapons into Okinawa in a contingency situation has been preserved by the family of the late former Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, who signed the document, it has been learned.

MIDDLE EAST
4. US warns Iran to meet nuclear deadline
AFP by Tangi Quemener
The United States warned Iran Tuesday that December is "a very real deadline" after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed an international ultimatum over its nuclear program.

5. Diplomats Will Extend Iran Talks
WSJ
Representatives from Russia, China, Britain, France, the U.S. and Germany adjourned their telephone consultation about Iran's nuclear program Tuesday without giving guidance on when they will ask the United Nations Security Council to consider measures to increase pressure on Iran.

6. Iranian nuclear negotiator rejects IAEA proposal on uranium transfer
Japan Times by Kyodo
Tehran cannot accept a U.N.-brokered proposal to transfer the bulk of its low-enriched uranium out of Iran with the aim of converting it into fuel for use in a medical research reactor amid political pressure from the United States and European countries, according to visiting nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

7. Stalemate: How Obama's Iran Outreach Failed
Time by Tony Karon
Having concluded that President Obama's outreach has failed to halt Iran's nuclear program, the final weeks of 2009 find his Administration focused on mustering support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Iran's rejection of the terms offered thus far by the U.S. and its partners has prompted Obama to largely revert to the Bush Administration's approach of ultimatums backed by sanctions — with little obvious prospect of producing a substantially different result.

8. As Ahmadinejad bullies the West, unrest grows in Iran
WP
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD of Iran says that the government over which he presides is "ten times" stronger than it was a year ago. Therefore, Mr. Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday, the Islamic Republic will defy the Obama administration's year-end deadline for accepting a U.N.-drafted proposal to trade Iran's enriched uranium stockpile for less dangerous nuclear fuel. Iran is "not afraid" of the sanctions that the United States and its allies may have in store, Mr. Ahmadinejad boasted, adding: "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you."

9. China, France's views on Iran, Afghanistan 'identical'
AFP
China and France share identical views on the Iranian nuclear issue and on Afghanistan, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday following talks with China's top leaders.

10. Republicans ready to tie Iran sanctions to French-Russian arms deal
The Cable by Josh Rogin
As the Senate negotiates with the Obama administration over Iran sanctions, conflict over a French arms sale to Russia could get caught up in the mix.

11. Iran, Japan should work together on nuclear disarmament issue
Tehran Times
Iran and Japan should work together to help efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said on Tuesday.

SOUTH ASIA

RUSSIA/FSU
12. US: Arms talks with Russia to drag into 2010
AP by Bradley S. Klapper
The United States and Russia have failed to clinch a new nuclear arms control treaty this year, denying the White House a quick boost in its efforts to demonstrate improved relations with Moscow.

13. US and Russia to miss deadline, again, on renewed START treaty
CSM by Howard LaFranchi
The United States and Russia are about to miss a second deadline for replacing a landmark 1991 treaty by which the two cold war powers began reducing their formidable nuclear arsenals.

EUROPE
14. France to compensate people who suffered health problems from nuclear tests
Canadian Press by AP
France's parliament on Tuesday passed a law to compensate victims of nuclear tests in Algeria and the South Pacific, a response to decades of complaints by people sickened by radiation.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

MISCELLANEOUS
15. Cyber Security Shortcomings at Nuclear Labs?
ABC News by Angela Hill
The Department of Energy, which is responsible for the nation's nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, may jeopardize the security of its technology and lose millions of dollars if it does not improve its cyber security, according to a recent Inspector General's report.

OPINION
16. Let's START over
Washington Times by Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
41 Senators sent a letter to President Obama insisting that modernization accompany any new START.
 
17. ANALYSIS - 2010 to be key year in fight against nuclear arms
Reuters by Louis Charbonneau
Next year will be crucial for global nuclear non-proliferation efforts and all eyes will be on the United States and Russia to see if the two top atomic powers can reach a deal to reduce their arsenals.

18. Harvard's Allison: be afraid of nuclear race
Boston Globe by James F. Smith
Consider this scary scenario from Harvard Kennedy School Professor Graham Allison, one of the nation's foremost experts on nuclear weapons: Remember how healthy and safe the world's economy seemed to be just months before it imploded last year? What if the same is true of the world's nuclear weapons landscape?

19. How Obama can earn peace prize
Financial Times
Nuclear arms control negotiations are always in danger of coming across as a hangover from the cold war – maybe even as something leaders can show they are doing for the world when they cannot close a deal on climate change. But cynicism or complacency would be short-sighted. Twenty years after the end of the cold war, the threat of nuclear weapons – some 23,000 of them with a combined blast capacity equal to 150,000 Hiroshimas – is a threat to humanity at least equal to climate change, and potentially far more immediate.

20. This is no smoking gun, nor Iranian bomb
Guardian by Norman Dombey
Seven years ago Condoleezza Rice said "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon, but "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud". Now the focus is on Iran, not Iraq. Iran's nuclear projects are in the news again. According to the Times last week, alleged "confidential intelligence documents" show Iran is working on testing a key final component of a nuclear bomb. The notes, the newspaper claims, describe "a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion". President Ahmadinejad yesterday denounced the documents as more American forgeries. But even if we take them as genuine, is this a real "smoking gun" – and what do the documents show anyway?

21. Hard choices for Iran in 2010
Asia Times by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
What will 2010 bring to the stalemated United States-Iran relations? Continuing stalemate, a worsening relationship marked with greater sanctions and punitive measures slated for the Islamic Republic of Iran or, on the other hand, a gradual improvement and perhaps even some breakthrough on the nuclear front occupying the center stage in the current diplomacy between the two nations?

22. Russia and Iran perpetuate the illusion of an alliance
Daily Star by Sadegh Zibakalam 
Observers of Iran must be baffled by the “death to Russia” slogan that many Iranians shout at their street demonstrations. Ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 the familiar slogans have been “death to American,” “death to Israel” and occasionally the call for “death to Britain” or another European power. Never in 30 years had Iranians called for “death to Russia.” The same applies to China. Iranians are now calling “death to China” in their protests against their own government.