Nonproliferation News - September 28, 2009

FISSILE MATERIAL
Iran Reported to Have Tested Long-Range Missiles
NYT by Alan Cowell

Cryptic Iranian Note Ignited an Urgent Nuclear Strategy Debate
NYT by Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti

On nuke arms, 2010 will challenge Obama
AP by Charles J. Hanley

India stays firm, rejects NPT, CTBT
Economic Times by Nirmala Ganapathy

EAST ASIA
1. Japan, China, S. Korea urge N. Korea to return to 6-party talks
Kyodo News
The foreign ministers of Japan, China and South Korea on Monday urged North Korea to return to the six-party denuclearization talks as a way of addressing its nuclear ambitions, while agreeing to promote regional economic cooperation with the concept of an ''East Asian community.''

2. US seeks 'unified' call on NKorea nuclear talks: envoy
AFP
The United States wants its partners in the six-nation forum on North Korea's nuclear disarmament to send Pyongyang a "unified" message to return to the talks, a senior US envoy said Sunday.

3. INTERVIEW-NKorea must face "no choice" but disarm-Lee
Reuters by Paul Eckert
North Korea must be faced with "no choice" but to abandon its nuclear arms programs, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said on Friday, calling for a mix of allied firmness and incentives to test Pyongyang's intention to disarm.

4. Report: China's premier to visit North Korea
CNN
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit North Korea for two days next month, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Monday.

MIDDLE EAST
5. Iran Reported to Have Tested Long-Range Missiles
NYT by Alan Cowell
Locked in a deepening dispute with the United States and its allies over its nuclear program, Iran was reported Monday to have test-fired long-range missiles capable of striking Israel and American bases in the Persian Gulf in what seemed a show of force.

6. Iran vows to stick with low-level nuclear enrichment
AFP by Hiedeh Farmani
Iran will keep its uranium enrichment level at up to five percent -- much lower than bomb-grade -- its nuclear chief said on Sunday after news of Tehran's new atomic facility sparked a global outcry.

7. U.S. Is Seeking a Range of Sanctions Against Iran
NYT by Mark Landler
The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.

8. Defense Chief Says Iran Faces ‘Severe’ Sanctions
NYT by Brian Knowlton
The disclosure of a new nuclear enrichment site in Iran places the government “in a very bad spot” and raises the prospect of “severe additional sanctions,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

9. Can China help to defuse the nuclear threat from Iran?
The Guardian by Tania Branigan
As a veto-holding permanent member of the UN Security Council, China's position will be crucial to international efforts to deal with Iran's secret nuclear facility.

10. Clinton: Hard for Iran to make peaceful nuke claim
AP by Jim Kuhnhenn
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she doesn't believe Iran can convince the U.S. and other world powers that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, putting Tehran on course for tougher economic penalties beyond the current "leaky sanctions."

11. Medvedev Leaves Wiggle Room on Sanctions
WSJ by Gregory L. White
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev may have joined the U.S. and other Western powers last week in threatening Iran with tough new sanctions, but he left plenty of room for the Kremlin to break ranks when it comes to making them stick.

12. Israel wants more Iran sanctions: reports
AFP
Israel is lobbying Western powers to impose harsher sanctions on arch-foe Iran after Tehran disclosed the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant, Israeli news reports said on Sunday.

13. U.S. demands inspection of Iran nuke plant
UPI
The United States will insist Iran open its newly revealed uranium-enrichment plant to inspectors within weeks, Obama administration officials say.
 
14. Cryptic Iranian Note Ignited an Urgent Nuclear Strategy Debate
NYT by Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti
After hearing of the letter Iran sent to the IAEA, the White House decided to outflank the Iranians. They saw it as a chance to use this evidence to persuade other countries to support the case for stronger sanctions by showing that the Iranians were still working on a secret nuclear plan.

15. US officials: Digging, clues revealed Iranian site
AP by Pamela Hess
Seven years ago, when Iran revealed the existence of its first secret uranium enrichment site at Natanz, U.S. intelligence agencies had a hunch it wouldn't be Iran's last attempt to illicitly produce fuel that might one day power a nuclear warhead.

SOUTH ASIA
16. India raises nuclear stakes
Financial Times by James Lamont and James Blitz
India can now build nuclear weapons with the same destructive power as those in the arsenals of the world’s major nuclear powers, according to New Delhi’s senior atomic officials.

17. Obama NPT move not directed at us: PM
Indian Express by P. Vaidyanathan Iyer
The United States of America has assured India that President Barack Obama’s resolution — since unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council on September 24 — requiring all members to ratify the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), is not directed at India. It would have no impact on the Indo-US civil nuclear pact.

18. India stays firm, rejects NPT, CTBT
Economic Times by Nirmala Ganapathy
After the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the US has renewed the call for countries to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but India, for now, remains unfazed.

19. India will not adhere to discriminatory NPT: Tharoor
Indian Express
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has said that India will not adhere to any treaty such as the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and will not sign it as long as it is discriminatory.

RUSSIA/FSU
20. Medvedev jumps the gun on Iran 
Asia Times by M.K. Bhadrakumar
The Western perception that the famous Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-Medvedev "tandem" in Moscow would inevitably transform and the Russian president would incrementally create his own power center in the Kremlin received a boost.  Medvedev avoids doing anything to debunk the growing perception of him as a reformist in the wings.

EUROPE

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

MISCELLANEOUS

OPINION
21. Keeping Iran honest
The Guardian by Scott Ritter
The evidence presented about Iran’s facility at Qom isn’t the smoking gun it’s made out to be.  Iran has not diverged nuclear materials to the Qom plant and arguably is in compliance with IAEA requirements.

22. How many more secret nuke sites does Iran have?
Haaretz by Yossi Melman
Intelligence experts in the West and in Israel assumed for some time that a country that is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons would also develop a secret installation for enriching uranium so that it could hide its activities from the international community.  If Iran does agree to let IAEA inspectors into the site, it will have to build a third enrichment facility - although there may already be one in place. Which raises a major question: How many other secret sites does Iran have for the production of the essential elements for its nuclear program?

23. There Are Only Two Choices Left on Iran
WSJ by Eliot A. Cohen
Only the terminally innocent should have been surprised to learn that Iran has at least one other covert site, whose only purpose could be the production of highly enriched uranium for atom bombs.  There are only two options left, an Israeli strike or living with a nuclear Iran.

24. Experts Weigh in on Obama’s Explanation of Iran’s Nuclear Facility
Washington Independent by Spencer Ackerman
Several independent experts believe the facility is most likely being constructed to support a nuclear weapons program, especially as Iran’s concealment of it comes after years of nondisclosure and obstruction of inspections. But even those experts believe that the “size and configuration” of the facility does not necessarily mean it could only be used to build an atomic bomb.
 
25. The U.S.-Iranian Triangle
NYT by Roger Cohen
France and Germany fought three wars in 70 years before the bright idea dawned of enfolding their problem into something larger: the European Union. The United States and Iran have not gone to war but have a relationship of psychotic mistrust. The answer can only be the same: Broaden the context.

26. Analysis: On nuke arms, 2010 will challenge Obama
AP by Charles J. Hanley
In the afterglow of success at his one-day U.N. nuclear summit, a satisfied Barack Obama was also realistic.  "The next 12 months will be absolutely critical," the U.S. president said. Lasting success, he knew, lies beyond some high hurdles to be cleared in 2010.