Nonproliferation News - November 9, 2009

FISSILE MATERIAL
U.S. Weighs Pyongyang Envoy
WSJ by Evan Ramstad

Iran Is Said to Ignore Effort to Salvage a Nuclear Deal
NYT by David E. Sanger

Medvedev Says Russia May Back Sanctions on Iran if Deal Falls Apart
NYT by Ellen Barry

Defending the Arsenal
New Yorker by Seymour M. Hersh

EAST ASIA
1. U.S. Weighs Pyongyang Envoy
WSJ by Evan Ramstad
The U.S. is near a decision on whether to send an envoy to North Korea, just as top American and South Korean officials are speaking more directly about their goal of breaking Pyongyang from a two-decade pattern of provocation and extortion.

2. White House approaching N. Korea warily
UPI
A U.S. official says the White House is approaching direct negotiations with North Korea warily, given Pyongyang's track record of broken promises.

MIDDLE EAST
3. Iran Is Said to Ignore Effort to Salvage a Nuclear Deal
NYT by David E. Sanger
The Obama administration, attempting to salvage a faltering nuclear deal with Iran, has told Iran’s leaders in back-channel messages that it is willing to allow the country to send its stockpile of enriched uranium to any of several nations, including Turkey, for temporary safekeeping, according to administration officials and diplomats involved in the exchanges.

4. Iran's Jalili wants nuclear enrichment deal 'quickly'
AFP
Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator said Sunday he wants to reach agreement "as quickly as possible" on a UN-brokered plan to provide Iran with enriched uranium for a Tehran reactor, state television said.

5. ElBaradei Suggests Turkey as Compromise on Iran Nuclear Impasse
Bloomberg by Bill Varner
Iran’s enriched uranium could be shipped to Turkey as a means of easing U.S. and European concerns over the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear ambitions, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency said.

6. Iran’s first priority is buying uranium for Tehran reactor
Tehran Times
Iran will only exchange its low-enriched uranium after it receives the 20 percent enriched uranium promised in the latest nuclear deal, a leading lawmaker said on Sunday.

7. Iran lawmakers: No shipment of uranium abroad
AP by Ali Akbar Dareini
Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected on Saturday any possibility of Tehran shipping uranium abroad for further enrichment, intensifying pressures on the government to reject the U.N.-backed plan altogether.

8. Russia-Iran Relations Balancing on Nuclear Issue
VOA News by Edward Yeranian
A senior Iranian lawmaker has warned Russia that continuing to delay the delivery of a missile-defense system to Iran will harm relations between the two countries. The comments were made as Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was scheduled to visit Tehran.

9. Medvedev Says Russia May Back Sanctions on Iran if Deal Falls Apart
NYT by Ellen Barry
President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Russia might back sanctions against Iran if the Iranians did not take a “constructive position” on an international plan to temporarily diminish their stockpile of enriched uranium.

10. Iran Studied Advanced Nuke Trigger, IAEA Findings Suggest
GSN
A continuing U.N. analysis of Iran's nuclear capabilities suggests the Middle Eastern state might have tested explosive elements of a "two-point implosion" technology that could be used in producing smaller nuclear warheads, the London Guardian reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 5).

SOUTH ASIA
11. Pakistan rejects unsecured nukes report
CNN
Pakistan angrily defended the security of its nuclear arsenal Sunday after a U.S. magazine reported that the Obama administration wants Pakistan to let Washington help secure its weapons in a crisis.

12. ANALYSIS-Pakistan's nuclear weapons are safe, for now
Reuters by Myra MacDonald
Pakistan's nuclear installations are so well guarded that Islamist militants behind a wave of violence in the country's heartland would find it very hard to storm them and steal material for a nuclear bomb, analysts say.

13. US, Pakistan negotiate deal on nuke security: report
AFP
The United States has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine.

RUSSIA/FSU
14. Medvedev: Arms control deal with US can be reached
WP by Vladimir Isachenkov
Russia and the United States have a good chance of reaching a new nuclear arms reduction deal before year's end, but other nuclear powers must join disarmament efforts, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in remarks released Saturday.

15. U.S. officials optimistic about new nuclear treaty with Russia
WP by Mary Beth Sheridan and Walter Pincus
After months of negotiations with Russia, Obama administration officials are hopeful about a breakthrough -- possibly this week -- that would enable the two sides to sign a successor to their most extensive nuclear weapons treaty before it expires Dec. 5.

16. Lugar Introduces Legislation to Extend START Verification Regime
GSN by Martin Matishak
A senior U.S. lawmaker this week introduced legislation that would extend the verification regime of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by six months (see GSN, Nov. 3).

EUROPE
17. Germans press for removal of US nuclear weapons in Europe
Guardian by Julian Borger
Pressure is growing within Nato for the removal of the remaining US nuclear weapons on European soil, and for a new doctrine for the alliance that would depend less on nuclear deterrence.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

MISCELLANEOUS
18. Iran, North Korea top Clinton's overseas agenda
AP by Matthew Lee
Nuclear impasses with Iran and North Korea are the dominant issues for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Europe and Asia, which begins with a stopover in Germany to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall.

19. Danger of "Nonlethal" Agents Grows Amid States' Inaction, Report Says
GSN by Chris Schneidmiller
A new report says the international community has yet to adequately focus on the danger posed by the growing development of so-called nonlethal riot-control and incapacitating agents (see GSN, July 10, 2008).

OPINION
20. Defending the Arsenal
New Yorker by Seymour M. Hersh
Pakistan has been a nuclear power for two decades, and has an estimated eighty to a hundred warheads, scattered in facilities around the country. The success of the latest attacks raised an obvious question: Are the bombs safe?

21. Iran's 'Great Satan' addiction
WP by David Ignatius
The Iranians have a word they use to describe a political impasse. They speak of it as a bombast, which means a dead-end street, or a knot that can't be untied. That's a good description of the deadlocked debate in Tehran over the nuclear issue.

22. Future of Japan-US Alliance
Korea Times by Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman
The headlines associated with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' recent visit to Japan notwithstanding, relations between Washington and Tokyo are not as strained as they may appear … at least not yet.