Nuclear Policy News - March 1, 2010

FISSILE MATERIAL
White House Is Rethinking Nuclear Policy
NYT by David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker

US, Russian nuclear negotiators meet again March 9
AP by Bradley S. Klabber

Iran moves enriched uranium stock back underground
Reuters by Mark Heinrich and Sylvia Westall

IAEA says citing "facts" on Iran, cooperation urgent
Reuters by Mark Heinrich

EAST ASIA
1. SKorea renews offer of incentives for disarmament
AP by Hyung-Jin Kim
South Korea's president said Monday that he wants to achieve "genuine" reconciliation with North Korea through dialogue and renewed his offer of a package of incentives for the North's nuclear disarmament.

2. Momentum builds for 6-party talks
Korea Herald by Kim Ji-hyun
Prospects for another round of talks devised to terminate North Korea`s nuclear ambitions appeared to grow brighter last week after the United States publicly noted signs hinting at Pyongyang`s long-awaited return to the stalemated negotiations.

3. N. Korea provided raw uranium to Syria in 2007: sources
Kyodo
North Korea provided about 45 tons of "yellowcake" uranium to Syria in September 2007 for production of fuel for an undeclared nuclear reactor, diplomatic and military sources knowledgeable on North Korean issues said Saturday.

MIDDLE EAST
4. Iran moves enriched uranium stock back underground
Reuters by Mark Heinrich and Sylvia Westall
Iran has moved a stock of enriched uranium back underground after drawing what it needed to refine the material up to 20 percent purity, Tehran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

5. IAEA says citing "facts" on Iran, cooperation urgent
Reuters by Mark Heinrich
The U.N. nuclear agency chief said on Monday he was taking a factual approach to Iran's nuclear work after he caused a stir last month by suggesting Tehran may be trying now to develop a nuclear-armed missile. Yukiya Amano did not repeat that position in his first address to the agency's governing body in a possible effort to dampen tensions after a developing nation bloc, to which Iran belongs, suggested his report was not sufficiently balanced.

6. Iran: US behind IAEA charge that Iran making bomb
AFP by ALi Akbar Dareini
Iran's supreme leader charged Sunday that U.S. and its allies are behind the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's claim that Iran may be making nuclear bombs, despite its repeated denials.

7. U.S. keeping Israel "on same page" vs Iran: senator
Reuters
The United States is working to close ranks with Israel on how to tackle Iran's nuclear project, a senior U.S. senator said on Monday, playing down the prospect of the Israelis attacking their arch-foe unilaterally.

8. Israel shows China evidence of Iran bomb program
Haaretz by Barak Ravid
An Israeli delegation that traveled to Beijing last week presented detailed intelligence on Iran's nuclear program in an attempt to persuade China that Tehran seeks atomic weapons, a senior diplomatic source told Haaretz.

9. Nuclear Iran Would Spur Regional Arms Race, Israel’s Barak Says
Bloomberg by Simon Lomax
Saudi Arabia would obtain nuclear weapons within a “few months” as part of a broader Middle East arms race if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said today.

10. Hillary Clinton to discuss Iran's nuclear program on Latin America trip
CSM by Howard LaFranchi
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton undertakes a “we haven’t forgotten you” swing through Latin America this week that aims to bolster the Obama administration’s profile in the region, with an agenda ranging from democracy and security to Iran.

11. UN urges Iraq to ratify atomic inspection protocol
Reuters by Louis Charbonneau
The Security Council on Friday urged Iraq to ratify an agreement requiring it to accept intrusive inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which dismantled a covert Iraqi atom bomb program in the 1990s.

SOUTH ASIA
12. U.S. denies nuclear deal, power plant to Pakistan
PTI
The U.S. has told Pakistan that it will not get any atomic power plant or civilian nuclear deal, similar to the one it signed with India.

RUSSIA/FSU/EUROPE
13. US, Russian nuclear negotiators meet again March 9
AP by Bradley S. Klabber
American and Russian negotiators have left Geneva after failing to conclude a new nuclear weapons treaty in their latest round of talks, a U.S. official said Monday.

MULTILATERAL ARMS CONTROL AND NONPROLIFERATION

U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS STRATEGY AND POLICY
14. White House Is Rethinking Nuclear Policy
NYT by David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker
As President Obama begins making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the United States, senior aides say he will permanently reduce America’s arsenal by thousands of weapons. But the administration has rejected proposals that the United States declare it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, aides said.

15. Barack Obama orders new nuclear review amid growing feud
Guardian by Peter Beaumont
President Barack Obama has ordered the rewriting of the draft new US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), amid frustration in the White House that the document fails to reflect his aspirations for a nuclear-weapons-free world and an end to "cold war thinking".

16. Homeland Security Dept. says it will drop plans for Bush-era nuclear detectors
WP by Robert O'Harrow Jr.
The Department of Homeland Security office responsible for protecting the nation from nuclear and radiological terrorism is largely scrapping plans for new high-tech detectors for screening vehicles and cargo, saying they cost too much and do not work as effectively as security officials once maintained.

OPINIONS
17. Why The Nuclear Review Is Delayed
The Atlantic by Marc Ambinder
Confirming: the release of the long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review will be delayed well into March because the basic issue -- when, and why, the U.S. would use nuclear weapons, remains a contentious subject of debate.

18. New Think and Old Weapons
NYT
Every four years the White House issues a “nuclear posture review.” That may sound like an anachronism. It isn’t. In a world where the United States and Russia still have more than 20,000 nuclear weapons — and Iran, North Korea and others have seemingly unquenchable nuclear appetites — what the United States says about its arsenal matters enormously.

19. A new sheriff at the U.N.
Washington Times by Ilan Berman
If it's true that in politics you are judged by the caliber of your enemies, Yukiya Amano is off to a stellar start. The 62-year-old Japanese technocrat has only been at the helm of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for two months, but he is already exceedingly unpopular with the Iranian regime.

20. Incremental sanctions make a nuclear Iran more likely
Foreign Policy by Michael Singh
In its most recent report, the IAEA acknowledged what many observers have asserted for years -- that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. Whether this is the result of new evidence, or merely the willingness of the agency’s new director-general to heed the existing evidence, is beside the point. The findings will provide new impetus for a sanctions push that has been extensively foreshadowed over the last several months by leaders in the United States and Europe.

21. AP Enterprise: How nuclear equipment reached Iran
AP by Peter Enav and Debby Wu
Early last year, a Chinese company placed an order with a Taiwanese agent for 108 nuclear-related pressure gauges. But something happened along the way. Paperwork was backdated. Plans were rerouted, orders reconfigured, shipping redirected.

22. US wins in India-Pakistan talks
Boston Globe
THE TALKS Thursday between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India represent a step in the right direction for those two nuclear-armed neighbors - and also an apt exercise of American diplomacy. Without a resolution of their chronic conflict, neither country can enjoy true security. And American aims in Afghanistan cannot be achieved as long as Pakistan and India continue their fierce, covert struggle for influence in that country.