Q&A: Why the attention on Pakistan’s Chashma nuclear complex?

July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari visits China from Tuesday, following mounting signs that Chinese companies are moving ahead with plans to build two reactors at the Chashma nuclear complex in Punjab province.

Here is an explanation about those plans and why some other governments are concerned.

WHAT IS THE CHASHMA COMPLEX?

Chashma in Pakistan’s Punjab province is the site of a nuclear power complex built using Chinese expertise and designs. One 300 megawatt pressurized water reactor began commercial operation in 2000, and Chinese companies are building another one likely to be finished in 2011 or 2012.

Chinese nuclear companies have also unveiled plans to build another two bigger reactors at Chashma in coming years. They have not issued detailed information about when they will start, but contracts have been signed and financing is being secured.

WHY IS CHINA HELPING BUILD MORE REACTORS THERE?

Converging foreign policy and commercial motives appear to be driving China’s decision.

Pakistan is a long-standing partner of China, and Beijing believes it is important to back Pakistan to counter Indian regional dominance. It is also wary of growing U.S. sway across South Asia.

Pakistan faces increasing power shortages, and demand is likely to keep growing quickly as the country’s population expands.

There’s also a commercial pull, said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Chinese nuclear companies want to win foreign markets, and for now Pakistan is virtually the only “springboard” they have to hone their skills abroad and nurture the expertise that they hope will later find customers in other parts of the world.

ARE THERE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION RISKS?

In theory, Pakistan could at some later date take spent fuel from Chashma to reprocess for plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons.

In practice, however, the International Atomic Energy Agency keeps safeguards at Chashma to prevent that happening, said Hibbs. China would keep control of the spent fuel to ensure it is not at risk of diversion to weapons programs, he said.

“There would be no connection between the fuel and reactors provided by China and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program,” he said.

SO WHAT ARE OTHER GOVERNMENTS WORRIED ABOUT?

Some of the worry is about Pakistan, and some is about the integrity of nuclear non-proliferation rules. There are those, including many commentators in India, who say Pakistan is so dogged by instability and militant pressures that it should not receive nuclear technology, which could be the target of attacks.

Also, leading Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan was an important illicit broker of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and critics say that is another reason to worry.

The more broadly shared worry is that, however safe Chashma may be, expanding the nuclear complex there could be a fresh blow to the integrity of nuclear non-proliferation rules.

Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons, and both countries refuse to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would oblige them to scrap those weapons.

The NPT rules say that if countries not authorized to possess nuclear weapons want to receive nuclear materials from countries adhering to the Treaty, they should accept comprehensive safeguard agreements for their nuclear activities.

WHAT CAN THEY DO?

For now, the main arena for addressing this issue is the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-member body that seeks to ensure nuclear exports are not diverted to non-peaceful purposes.

To receive nuclear exports, nations that are not one of the five officially recognized atomic weapons states must usually place all their nuclear activities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency, say NSG rules.

When the United States sealed its nuclear agreement with India in 2008, it won a waiver from that rule from the NSG after contentious negotiations. Washington and other governments have said China should at least seek a similar exemption for the planned reactors in Pakistan.

But there is little likelihood of all 46 member governments of the NSG voting in favor of a waiver, and this is a group that operates by consensus, said Hibbs.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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U.S. seeks details on China-Pakistan nuclear deal

June 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – The United States was seeking clarification from China on its deal earlier this year to build two new civilian nuclear reactors for Pakistan, the State Department said on Tuesday.

Politics

“We have asked China to clarify the details of its sale of additional nuclear reactors to Pakistan. This appears to extend beyond cooperation that was grandfathered when China was approved for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

“We believe that such cooperation would require a specific exemption approved by consensus of the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” Crowley said.

The United States was expected to oppose the China-Pakistan deal next week at a meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

The 46-nation group controls trade in “dual-use” nuclear fuel, materials and technology to ensure they are applied only to civilian nuclear energy programs and not diverted into clandestine nuclear weapons work.

The Washington Post reported that China has suggested that the sale is grandfathered from before it joined the NSG in 2004, because it was completing work on two earlier reactors for Pakistan at the time.

(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Obama: U.N. sanctions “unmistakable message” to Iran

June 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday said fresh U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran send an “unmistakable message” to that country over its nuclear program.

Barack Obama

“This resolution will put in place the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government,” Obama said after the 15-nation council passed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, which the West suspects of developing the means to build atom bombs.

“It sends an unmistakable message about the international community’s commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons,” he told reporters at the White House.

The resolution followed five months of talks between the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia.

With 12 votes in favor, it received the least support of the four Iran sanctions resolutions adopted since 2006, but Obama vowed to make them stick.

“We will ensure that these sanctions are vigorously enforced, just as we continue to refine and enforce our own sanctions on Iran,” he said.

“There is no double standard at play here. We’ve made it clear, time and again, that we respect Iran’s right, like all countries, to access peaceful nuclear energy,” Obama said.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Obama: UN sanctions “unmistakable message” to Iran

June 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday said fresh U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran send an “unmistakable message” to that country over its nuclear program.

“This resolution will put in place the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government,” Obama said after the 15-nation council passed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran, which the West suspects of developing the means to build atom bombs.

“It sends an unmistakable message about the international community’s commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons,” he told reporters at the White House.

The resolution followed five months of talks between the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia.

With 12 votes in favor, it received the least support of the four Iran sanctions resolutions adopted since 2006, but Obama vowed to make them stick.

“We will ensure that these sanctions are vigorously enforced, just as we continue to refine and enforce our own sanctions on Iran,” he said.

“There is no double standard at play here. We’ve made it clear, time and again, that we respect Iran’s right, like all countries, to access peaceful nuclear energy,” Obama said.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Iran greatest threat to NPT in Middle East: Obama

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Seeking strengthening of the global non-proliferation regime, President Barack Obama on Saturday said the greatest threat to NPT in the Middle East is Iran’s failure to live up to its international obligations over its controversial nuclear programme.

“The NPT must be at the centre of our global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, while pursuing the ultimate goal of a world without them.

This agreement includes balanced and practical steps that will advance non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which are critical pillars of the global non-proliferation regime,” Obama said in a statement.

“It reaffirms many aspects of the agenda that I laid out in Prague, and which we have pursued together with other nations over the last year, and underscores that those nations that refuse to abide by their international obligations must be held accountable,” he said.

Noting that the document includes an agreement to hold a regional conference in 2012 to discuss issues relevant to a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems, Obama said the US has long supported such a zone, although its view is that a comprehensive and durable peace in the region and full compliance by all regional states with their arms control and nonproliferation obligations are essential precursors for its establishment.

“We strongly oppose efforts to single out Israel, and will oppose actions that jeopardise Israel’s national security,” the President said.

“The greatest threat to proliferation in the Middle East, and to the NPT, is Iran’s failure to live up to its NPT obligations,” he added.

“Today’s efforts will only strengthen the NPT as a critical part of our efforts to ensure that all nations meet their NPT and non-proliferation obligations, or face consequences.

Together, we must work for a world where nation’s benefit from the peaceful power of nuclear energy, while also being secure from the threat posed by nuclear proliferation,” Obama said.

Meanwhile, welcoming the NPT review consensus, the Arms Control Association (ACA) said in the coming months and years, key states will have to deliver on their promises to strengthen IAEA safeguards, guard against treaty withdrawal, bring Iran and North Korea into compliance with their NPT and safeguards obligations.

Besides, bring India and Pakistan into the nuclear weapons risk reduction and elimination process, accelerate international cooperation on securing nuclear weapons usable material; and advance the verifiable nuclear arms reduction process, bringing the CTBT into force, negotiate a fissile material production cut off, further reduce the roles and missions of nuclear weapons, and create a framework for the verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons, the ACA said.

The ACA is a US-based private, non-profit membership organisation dedicated to public education and support of effective arms control measures pertaining to nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional weapons.

“The 2010 NPT Review Conference Final Statement encourages all states that have not done so to conclude and to bring into force additional protocols.

The Conference also called for ratification of the CTBT with all expediency. It affirmed that all States need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons,” Daryl Kimball of Arms Control Association said in a statement.

“The successes achieved at the conference were made possible by the leadership exhibited by the US team and by the shift in US nuclear weapons policy direction under President Obama over the past 15 months,” he said.

“The Conference also agreed to a practical and prudent approach to discuss the issues and conditions necessary to achieve a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.

The NPT Review Conference agreed to hold a meeting among states in the region by 2012 and to name a facilitator for the meeting,” Kimball said.

“Israel was engaged in arms control discussions with other states in the region in the 1990s.

If Israel joins in the process again, the difference would be that Iran would also be in those discussions, and concerns about Iran’s intentions would also be under the spotlight,” he said.

“While Iran was not specifically called out in the conference document, Iran’s safeguards violations are well known and were indirectly criticised in the Final Statement.

And of course, Iran remains on the hook for its safeguards violations and continued production of enriched uranium in violation of UNSC resolutions that call for it to suspend its uranium enrichment,” Kimball said.

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Nuclear conference adopts disarmament measures

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

New York, May 29 (DPA) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference adopted Friday a declaration upholding principles of disarmament and calling for an international conference in 2012 with the aim to establish a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East.

The 189 NPT parties also decided to address North Korea in its final declaration, calling on that country to return to negotiations to settle the dispute over its nuclear activities.

The 28-page declaration was adopted by consensus, closing a month of debate that began May 3. It contains a 22-point action plan.

Nuclear-weapons-free zones around the world and talks on nuclear disarmament are part of the NPT, which entered into force in 1970, but has so far failed to get the world’s five nuclear powers to agree on a legal timetable for a total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Those powers – the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain – still resist pressure by other NPT parties to impose such a timeline.

The NPT conference chairman, Philippine Ambassador Libran Cabactulan, has said that the revised draft declaration was ‘carefully balanced’ to reflect demands by all parties. He said adoption of the declaration would allow ‘all the seeds of hope planted throughout the conference would bear fruit’.

The declaration called on the UN secretary general, the US, Russia and Britain to designate a facilitator to organise the conference in 2012 to be attended by ‘all’ Middle East nations. Those three countries co-sponsored a resolution calling for a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East when the NPT met in 1995.

It said that resolution must be implemented in order to help the peace process in the Middle East region. It called on Israel to sign the NPT and to place ‘all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’.

Israel has never admitted it possesses nuclear weapons, as alleged by Arab governments.

The document called for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, and chemical and biological weapons in the Middle East.

For the first time, the NPT also includes in its declaration a call for North Korea to return ‘at an early date’ to talks and to carry out obligations under the six-party talks, which involve China, the US, Russia, Japan, North and South Korea. Those obligations include the ‘complete and verifiable abandonment of all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes’.

The document called for ‘the need’ of the nuclear-weapon states to reduce and eliminate their nuclear arsenals, but drops language that called it an ‘urgent’ need in the earlier draft.

‘In implementing the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals, the nuclear-weapon states commit to undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons, deployed and non-deployed’ through various agreements, it said.

There are an estimated 23,000 nuclear warheads around the world, most of them in arsenals of the five nuclear powers. Other countries known for having test-fired nuclear devices are India, Pakistan and North Korea.

About 40 countries have nuclear technology, from nuclear power plants for civilian energy uses to heavy water, which could be a component in the design for a nuclear reactor.

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Q+A – Why did Russia fall out with Iran?

May 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Iran’s tirade against Russia on Wednesday for supporting fresh U.N. sanctions showed how the former allies have now publicly fallen out.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a rare public rebuke to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, telling him he should “act more cautiously” and “think more”. The Kremlin replied that Ahmadinejad should refrain from “political demagoguery”.

Below are some questions and answers on why and how Moscow has shifted its position on Iran:

WEREN’T IRAN AND RUSSIA ALLIES?

Russia is a significant trading partner with Iran. Bilateral trade reached $3 billion last year, with Moscow selling the Islamic Republic nuclear technology, aircraft and other goods.

Iran and Russia are also among the world’s top oil and gas producers and have cooperated in this area.

In the diplomatic arena, Russia had resisted in 2008 and early 2009 fresh U.N. sanctions against Tehran and played down suggestions Iran was using its nuclear programme to build bombs.

HAS RUSSIA OPPOSED AN IRANIAN BOMB?

Russian officials have always insisted Moscow — which has a big problem of its own with Islamist terrorism — does not want to see a powerful Islamic state near its troubled southern borders acquire nuclear weapons. But until last year, Russia didn’t believe American assessments that it was likely to happen.

DIDN’T PUTIN DISMISS ANY NUCLEAR THREAT FROM IRAN?

In October 2007 while still president, Vladimir Putin became the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since Stalin, delivering smiling support to Ahmadinejad, warning the United States against any military action and upholding Iran’s right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme.

DID RUSSIA BELIEVE IRAN WAS PURSUING A BOMB?

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates recounted a meeting he had in 2007 with Putin:

“When I first met with President Putin and talked about this, he basically dismissed the idea that the Iranians would have a missile that would have the range to reach much of Western Europe and much of Russia before 2020 or so,” he said in testimony to the U.S. Senate last year.

“And he showed me a map that his intelligence guys had prepared. And I told him he needed a new intelligence service.”

WHEN DID THIS START TO CHANGE?

In the two years after that meeting, Russia started to change its assessment of the Iranian programme. However, in June 2009 Moscow was still happy to welcome Ahmadinejad to a summit of BRIC nations in Siberia and congratulate him on his disputed re-election. The real shift in policy towards Iran appears to have started over the course of last summer in Moscow.

DID OBAMA’S ELECTION ALTER ANYTHING?

When President Obama came to power in January 2009, he vowed to “reset” relations with Russia. This meant concessions to Moscow such as scaling back Bush-era missile defence plans in eastern Europe and accepting Russian influence in the former Soviet Union, in return for Moscow’s help on tackling international problems such as the Iranian nuclear programme and Afghanistan. Ties between the two nations improved dramatically.

BUT WASN’T RUSSIA RESISTING SANCTIONS ONLY LAST YEAR?

Despite headlines from Russian officials apparently resisting Western pressure on Iran, Western ambassadors in Moscow were talking confidently last year about how helpful and supportive Russia had been on Iran. It appears that Moscow was giving private assurances of support to the West on Iran some time before it changed its public position.

The West’s announcement in September that it had discovered a new secret Iranian nuclear fuel plant near the Muslim holy city of Qom further undermined Moscow’s confidence in Iran. Russia said the plant violated U.N. Security Council decisions and was a “source of serious concern”. In November 2009, Moscow supported an IAEA resolution condemning the move.

DID MEDVEDEV MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Medvedev’s strong personal relationship with Obama has made it easier for the two leaders to agree a common position on Iran. The Russian president first started talking of fresh sanctions against Iran last September and mentioned them again during a visit to the United State the same month.

After signing a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Obama last month, Medvedev said he regretted that Iran was not reacting to constructive proposals on its nuclear programme. Iran has complained that Russia is caving in to U.S. pressure.

ISN’T RUSSIA STILL PROVIDING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY TO IRAN?

Moscow has a $1 billion contract with Tehran to build and start up a nuclear power plant at Bushehr. The plant is planned to start up in August after numerous delays — which a senior Iranian lawmaker said were the result of Russia using Iran as a pawn in dealings with other powers such as the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton complained about Bushehr’s planned summer start-up when she visited Moscow in March, but Western diplomats say privately Russia has offered satisfactory safeguards against the plant being used for military purposes.

AND WASN’T RUSSIA GOING TO SELL IRAN AN AIR DEFENCE SYSTEM?

Moscow signed a contract in 2007 to sell Iran the S-300, a modern surface-to-air missile system that can be used to shoot down multiple hostile rockets and aircraft. However Russia has not yet fulfilled the contract and Western envoys say they have private assurances from Moscow that it will not do so.

WHAT MADE RUSSIA AGREE TO SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN THIS TIME?

A senior Kremlin official said earlier this month that if Washington wanted Moscow’s support for fresh sanctions against Iran, it needed to drop U.S. bans on trade with four Russian arms companies. Washington dropped the bans on Friday last week, though U.S. officials continue to deny any direct linkage with the Iran sanctions issue.

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Ahmadinejad urges Obama to accept nuke swap deal

May 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Iran’s president Wednesday urged Barack Obama to accept a nuclear fuel swap deal, warning the US leader will miss a historic opportunity for improved cooperation from Tehran if the offer is rejected.

Mahmoud Ahamdinejad also issued a stern warning to Russia, saying Moscow’s support for the US-led push for a new round of UN sanctions against Iran was contrary to the two countries’ neighbourly and friendly relations.

Washington has denounced the Iranian offer, brokered last week by Brazil and Turkey, as a ploy by Tehran to avoid a new round of UN sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, which the West fears is geared toward nuclear weapons.

“There are people in the world who want to pit Mr Obama against the Iranian nation and bring him to the point of no return, where the path to his friendship with Iran will be blocked forever,” Ahmadinejad said during a rally in the southern town of Kerman.

Iran proposed last week to ship much of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for nuclear fuel rods needed for a Tehran medical research reactor.

The fuel swap would diminish Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium that can possibly be used in making atomic bombs, if the uranium is enriched to a higher, weapons-grade level.

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UN nuclear conference calls on India to joint NPT, CTBT

May 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Breaking the tradition of not naming countries, the first draft of the final document of 2010 Nuclear-Non Proliferation Treaty Review conference has asked India, Pakistan and Israel to join NPT and CTBT.

“The conference calls upon India, Israel and Pakistan to accede to the treaty as non-nuclear weapon States, promptly and without conditions, thereby accepting an internationally legally binding commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices,” the first draft of the document said.

“The conference also calls upon India and Pakistan to maintain moratoriums on nuclear testing and calls upon India, Israel and Pakistan to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without delay and without conditions,” it said.

The NPT Review Conference is held every five years to assess the progress in reaching the goals set out in the 1970 treaty to disarm and stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

This year it started on May 3 and would end on May 28 when the final draft is expected.

India, Pakistan and Israel have not signed the treaty and do not attend. The last conference in 2005 ended in failure.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Western diplomat said here that there were countries, which had accepted that India and Pakistan were not going to become part of the treaty and suggested a new track to reign them into the non-proliferation regime.

“We are going to try and put them in a cooperation system with obligations so that they would have the same obligations that NPT countries without being in the NPT,” he said, noting that such an agreement was better than doing nothing.

Several experts, however, have pointed out that by the time the final document was prepared the names of the countries may be replaced by a more general call for the universal acceptance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Officials noted that naming Israel, for instance, would lead to the country not cooperating with the Arab nations on a plan to have a Middle East free nuclear weapons free zone.

“We want something so that all countries come to the table,” the Western diplomat said. “But it’s so fragile, it’s so difficult.”

Mark Hibbs, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who had attended the meetings noted that there seemed to be a “tacit agreement” not to retain the names by the end of the conference.

Yesterday, US also reiterated that its nuclear cooperation deal with India was a unique situation and did not set a precedent for the future, according to Reaching Critical Will, a project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the oldest women’s peace organisation in the world.

While several states continue to criticise the special status given to India through the Civil Nuclear deal as weakening the NPT regime, diplomats here noted that it had not become a major bone of contention.

However, the senior Western diplomat noted that the international community would not accept Pakistan entering into a deal similar to the one the US and India had signed.

“We know exactly what India is doing,” he said, noting that Islamabad would not allow checks on its nuclear facilities even if entered into a similar agreement with China.

“Pakistan does not want to have any inspection of any kind.”

Meanwhile, the five permanent members of the Security Council have come under severe criticism for watering down the disarmament obligations in the document.

“The commitment to disarm are clearly weaker than what they have been till now,” Hibbs said.

The senior Western official also noted that the tussle in the conference was between the permanent members of the Security Council that were united and the Non-Aligned Movement countries that had divided positions on several issues including Iran’s nuclear program.

“The final document will be weak because it will be the only way to have a document,” the Western diplomat said.

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Iran starts meeting with IAEA on nuclear fuel deal

May 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Iranian officials met the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief for talks on Monday at which they were expected to hand over a letter outlining a deal to send some of Tehran’s enriched uranium abroad.

The deal to swap low-enriched uranium for fuel to run an Iranian medical research reactor, aimed at allaying fears Iran is trying to amass enough fissile material for nuclear weapons, was agreed last week by Tehran with Turkey and Brazil.

Under the plan, Iran would transfer 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) — enough for an atom bomb if enriched to high purity — to Turkey in return for special fuel rods to replenish the stocks of its medical isotope reactor.

World powers have voiced doubt about the value of this offer — based on a seven-month-old, IAEA-backed proposal — since Iran’s LEU stockpile has grown significantly since then, meaning it could still be left with enough for a nuclear warhead.

Iran has also started refining uranium to a higher level.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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US wants START to span India, Pak

May 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan has figured during a Congressional hearings on the New START treaty between US and Russia.

For the past two days, during hearings on New START treaty held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, lawmakers wanted to know from top US officials and experts, who were asked to testify before it to give their assessment of this treaty on other nuclear weapon countries like India and Pakistan and how it can motivate the two countries to reduce their nuclear stockpile.

“I wonder if you might comment on reduction in counter proliferation efforts more generally, that this agreement might have an effect on. I think specifically of India and Pakistan, for instance. To what extent might this agreement have the positive impact on causing other nations to begin to move in this direction?” asked Senator Chris Dodd on Tuesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refrained from directly mentioning India and Pakistan in her answer, but did say that the US would soon explore the possibility of having a similar kind of dialogue with China.

“We want to explore beginning conversations with other nuclear nations, starting with China, and see what kind of opportunity for discussion could exist,” Clinton said.

Senator Benjamin L Cardin said the India-Pakistan issues are also ones of major concern to all of them and noted that that Russia and the US to work together on these issues that are important for the international community, including Iran and North Korea.

On Wednesday Senator Jim Risch said initially it was only between the US and Russia.

“We had the United States and we had Russia that had nuclear weapons. And we were doing the things that we did, and rightfully so, and it was important that we had the treaty,” he said.

“It seems to me, where we now have other countries, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, and the other issues out there, it seems to me that a missile defence is more important now than it’s ever been,” Risch said.

Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said: “The challenge that we face — India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran now — while you succeeded in reducing the nuclearization of a number of States.

And while some other states have chosen to give it up since then. We still have this very significant moment at this point with respect to Iran and what the implications would be for the Gulf, and a number of Arab states.”

Testifying before the committee, the former Secretary of State, Jim Baker said if the US and Russia have a good arms control agreement that is being observed by both countries that will help them in dealing with the problem with Iran in the UN Security Council.

“That is extraordinarily important. I mean, Pakistan and India and North Korea and Israel now all have the bomb.

And — and some of them have it in — in violation of the NPT that they signed.

And some of them have it because they were never NPT countries to begin with,” Baker said.

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Pak’s nukes well guarded by ‘strong hands’: Gilani

May 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Lahore, May 15 (ANI): Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday reiterated that his country’s nuclear assets are well guarded by ‘strong hands.’

Geo News quoted Gilani as saying that US President Barack Obama had himself acknowledged that Pakistan’s nuclear establishments were in safe hands.

He said that the country has suffered immensely in the ‘war on terror’, and that it was now the international community’s turn to ‘do more’ to help Pakistan come out of the myriad problems it is facing at present.

While the US is still suspicious of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, Gilani maintains that Islamabad’s ‘successful’ participation in the two-day nuclear security summit last month has ‘boosted the legitimacy of the country”s nuclear programme.’

During the nuclear security summit, Gilani had insisted that Islamabad needed fissile nuclear materials as a deterrent against India.

“For a minimum deterrence, we have to have. That is our requirement,” Gilani had said adding the issue has been discussed with the United States.

“I assure you that Pakistan, as a responsible nuclear state and an emerging democracy, stands with the international community in its effort to make this world a better place to live in,” he said.

It is worth mentioning here that John Brennan, the top anti-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, had warned that Al-Qaeda’s interest in nuclear weapons was “strong” and said the risk of nuclear terrorism was “real, “serious” and “growing.”

A report by Harvard University’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, titled Securing the Bomb, had said that Pakistan’s stockpile “faces a greater threat from Islamic extremists seeking nuclear weapons than any other nuclear stockpile on earth.” (ANI)

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US sceptical about Iran changing its course

May 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The US has expressed skepticism over Iran providing any ‘serious response’ to concerns raised by the international community about its controversial nuclear programme until the UN security Council imposes sanctions on it.

“I have told my counterparts in many capitals around the world that I believe that we will not get any serious response out of the Iranians until after the (UN) Security Council acts,” Clinton said at a joint news conference with visiting new British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Clinton said she is not expecting much progress in this weekend’s visit of the Turkish and Brazilian leaders to Tehran, as both the US and Britain believe Iran is determined to pursue its nuclear weapons programme.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is also scheduled to pay a visit to Iran.

State Department spokesman P J Crowley separately told reporters that he is not aware if the US has reached out to India on the Iranian issue.

In the past two days, Clinton has made personal telephone calls to the Foreign Ministers of the Turkey and Brazil to tell them that Iran is not meeting its international obligations.

Any attempt by the leaders of Turkey and Brazil to convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapons programme and come to the dialogue table, Clinton observed, would be just like climbing a hill.

“We are making progress every day. This is the highest priority, not only of the United States but of many of our partners and allies like the UK. We believe that the case is being made perhaps most effectively by the Iranians themselves,” she said.

Clinton also pointed out that the Iranians were not responding to the offers of engagement.

The Secretary of State said Brazilians are still hopeful that they would “climb the hill” to convince Iran to join the P5 Plus 1 (US, UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany) negotiation process.

“So the world leadership, as evidenced by the Security Council, has moved in the same direction — some perhaps more quickly than others — but in the direction of reaffirming the authority of the Security Council, of putting some real teeth into the sanctions, of uniting the world in a way that will send an unequivocal message to the Iranian leadership,” she said.

Hague, on his part, said that he had long advocated that the European Union should adopt financial sanctions of the kind the United States has implemented on this issue. “But, of course, we’ll have to get into the specifics of that once the Security Council resolution is passed.”

Observing that there is no magic to this approach, he said it requires persistence and determination and united strength in the international community to tackle this problem.

“And so we will buttress that as, indeed, our predecessors have tried to do. We have never ruled out supporting, in the future, military action, but we’re not calling for it,” Hague said in response to a question.

“It is precisely because we want to see this matter settled peacefully and rapidly that we call for the sanctions, that we support the idea of a Security Council resolution. That is our perspective on it,” he said supporting the US stand on Iran.

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Israel sees no discord with U.S. on nuclear issue

May 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Israel voiced confidence on Tuesday that U.S. President Barack Obama would not challenge its long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying it has nuclear weapons.

Asked whether Israel was losing U.S. support for its policy of “nuclear ambiguity”, Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio: “I don’t believe so. I spoke at length with President Obama about such issues just 10 days ago.”

Barak met Obama and other U.S. officials in Washington against the backdrop of a U.N. review conference in New York of the parties to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which Israel has not signed.

Hoping to win Arab backing for sanctions against Iran, the United States and other permanent U.N. Security Council members called last Wednesday for ways to be found to implement a 1995 initiative that would guarantee nuclear disarmament in a region where Israel is widely assumed to have the only such weapons.

The declaration followed campaigning by Egypt to focus attention, during the non-proliferation conference this month, on Israel, which has set peace with all its neighbours as a precondition for joining the pact.

Barak said Iran and North Korea — not Israel — were the main focus of international non-proliferation efforts.

“There’s nothing to be alarmed about. There is no real threat to the traditional position and understandings between Israel and the United States,” Barak said.

For the past 40 years, the United States has maintained a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy towards an assumed Israeli arsenal that is believed to include some 200 atomic warheads — a grievance and perceived threat among many Arabs and Muslims.

Israel’s strategy of ambiguity has been billed as a way to ward off enemies while avoiding public provocations that could trigger arms races.

Asked in the interview why Israel, which operates a top-secret reactor outside the southern town of Dimona, just doesn’t come out and acknowledge it is a nuclear power, Barak replied: “I think our position is the right one. There is no reason to change it.”

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Dan Williams; Editing by Charles Dick)

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Security think tank says Iran can fire nuke missile by 2012

May 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 11 (ANI): The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has said that Iran could fire a nuclear missile by the year 2012.

It said that the Sajjil-2 missile, with a range of 1,400 miles, was test-fired at the end of 2008 and will be ready for deployment in 2012.

The weapon relies on solid fuel for propulsion, which means it has a short preparation time and can”t be as easily deterred by a pre-emptive strike, the IISS added.

Iran is the only country to have developed a missile of this reach without first having developed nuclear weapons,” the IISS report said.

The missile would be capable of hitting Israel and parts of southern Europe depending on the size of the warhead.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a specialist on Iranian security, said the report demonstrated that Iran had devoted substantial resources to ballistic technology.

“Logic and the history of Iran”s revolutionary missile and space launcher development efforts suggest Tehran would develop and field an intermediate range missile before embarking on a programme to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the American East coast,” the IISS report said. (ANI)

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Times Square case: Ex-American envoy underscores foreign connection in growing Pak threat

May 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

New York, May 5 (ANI): The arrest of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad for his role in the foiled Times Square bombing, has once again underscored the growing prominence of Pakistan as the staging ground for attacks against the United States and other Western countries.

“Pakistan is the perfect example of a country that we need to prevent falling under terrorist control. As much of a tragedy as that explosion at Times Square might have been, if Pakistan falls to the Taliban or another radical extremist group, they would be in control of Pakistan”s very substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons,” John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News.

“That”s why this is so critical to understand really what the linkages might be here,” he added.

According to the Fox News report, the Obama administration continues to remain overtly concerned about Pakistan being a base for foreigners to train for terror plots abroad.

Officials say that after the suspect in the Times Square case became a citizen, he traveled to his native Pakistan and admitted to recently receiving bomb-making training in that country.

In December, five American Muslims from the Washington, D.C., area were captured and charged in Pakistan with plotting terror attacks. They were arrested in an area south of Islamabad after they disappeared, and they are accused of conspiring with Pakistani militants.

In October, U.S. citizen David Headley and three others were arrested and charged with conspiring with Lashkar-e-Taiba in the Mumbai attacks and with planning an attack against the office of the Danish newspaper under fire in the Muslim world for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Headley, who is of Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty in March.

In September, Colorado resident Najibullah Zazi was arrested and charged with plotting to bomb the New York subway system. According to the Department of Justice, Zazi, an Afghan, revealed during questioning prior to his guilty plea in February that he received his training from Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban has also claimed credit for the Times Square attempt, but New York officials have questioned that claim. (ANI)

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US has over 5000 existing nuclear war-heads

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 4 (ANI): The size of the United States’ nuclear warheads is estimated to be 5113, the Pentagon has disclosed, but according to the Federation of American Scientists an estimated 4,600 have been retired or dismantled.

According to The Telegraph, US and Russia together account for over 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

Setting a precedent, the US has decided to reveal the size of its nuclear stockpile in order to persuade other nuclear empowered countries to do the same.

Nuclear non-proliferation has been one of the key objectives of the Obama administration. Washington’s move to reveal the size of its nuclear arsenal assumes strategic significance in the backdrop of the forthcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review conference to be held in New York this month.

There are four nuclear states that are non-signatories of the treaty. According to the Natural Resources Defence Council, India has an estimated 250 warheads, Pakistan 100, North Korea 10 and Israel 80, though the last country has never confessed to possessing any weapons.

The Pentagon said 5113 warheads were either operationally deployed, kept in active reserve or held in inactive storage. On a fact sheet detailing numbers that had been classified for decades, it said that the arsenal has been reduced by 84 percent from its maximum level of 31225 warheads at the end of 1967, The Telegraph reports.

“We think it is in our national security interests to be as transparent as we can be about the nuclear programme of the United States. We think it builds confidence, we think it brings more people to an understanding of what President Obama is trying to do,” said Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State.

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Osama Bin Laden used to dream of possessing nuclear weapons: Ex-bodyguard

April 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 29(ANI): A former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden has reportedly revealed that the Al-Qaeda leader sought and wanted to use nuclear weapons.

“Osama used to dream of possessing nuclear weapons, and I am sure that if he were to get his hands on a nuclear weapon, he would not have hesitated to use it,” The New York Post quoted Nasser al-Bahri, as having told the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

He also said that he was “proud to have worked as a guard for a great personality.”

Bahari further revealed that he was instructed to kill bin Laden if that was the only way to avoid his capture.

“If we were not able to protect Sheikh Osama bin Laden as his personal guards, we were supposed … to eliminate him … It was better he be taken dead rather than alive,” he said.

Bahri is reported to have served bin Laden in Afghanistan for six years prior to returning to Yemen in 2000

Earlier, the United States had identified Al-Qaeda’s interest in nuclear weapons, and said the risk of nuclear terrorism was serious.

“Al Qaeda has been engaged in the effort to acquire a nuclear weapon for over 15 years, and its interest remains strong today,” said John Brennan, U.S. President Barack Obama’s top anti-terrorism and Homeland Security adviser. (ANI)

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Faster weapons may replace nukes in US

April 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In coming years, US President Barack Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal.

Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or destroying an Iranian nuclear site – all without crossing the nuclear threshold.

In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localised destructive power of a nuclear warhead.

The idea is not new: Former US President George W Bush and his staff promoted the technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would replace nuclear warheads on submarines.

Russian leaders complained that the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones.

The idea “really hadn’t gone anywhere in the Bush administration”, Defence Secretary Robert M Gates said on ABC’s This Week.

Obama himself alluded to the concept in a recent interview with The New York Times, saying it was part of an effort “to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons” while insuring “that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances”.

The Prompt Global Strike would be mounted on a long-range missile to start its journey toward a target. It would travel through the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, generating so much heat that it would have to be shielded with special material to avoid melting. Its designers note that it could fly straight up the Persian Gulf before making a sharp turn toward a target. The Pentagon hopes to deploy an early version of the system by 2014 or 2015.

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US won’t persuade ‘very special friends’ India, Pak to sign NPT

April 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr.22 (ANI): Bracketing both India and Pakistan as its ‘very special friends’, the United States has said that it would not pressurise these countries to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

Interacting with media persons during a press briefing here, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher said the Obama Administration is in direct touch with both India and Pakistan over such issues and holds daily conversations with them.

“The countries that you mentioned are very special friends of the United States. We have conversations with them every day about many different things,” Tauscher said while responding to a question that whether the US would persuade New Delhi and Islamabad to sign the NPT.

She, however, added: “We would like all countries to sign onto the NPT. We have a universality commitment, yes.”

The top US official also warned that the world was facing more danger than it was during the Cold War era, as more and more countries are competing to acquire nuke know-how.

“We have terrorist groups and organised crime and other bad actors that are looking to acquire nuclear technology, nuclear know-how and nuclear material. And secondarily, we have more states looking to acquire nuclear weapons than we have had in the last 15 years,” The Dawn quoted Tauscher, as saying.

When asked that if the White House feels that both India and Pakistan must cut down their nuclear arms race and reduce the stockpile of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Tauscher opted for a more diplomatic reply and said her views as a lawmaker were very different from her views as a senior US official.

“Congresswoman Tauscher and Under Secretary Tauscher occupy the same body but not in the same time. What I did in the Congress was one thing, and I get quite used to accepting when things pass and letting them go on,” Tauscher, who had strongly opposed the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, said.

She also acknowledged that Washington shares a significant relationship with New Delhi, and that being the under-secretary it was now her duty to implement the India-US nuclear accord.

“I’m very honoured to have been in India late last year, we have a very vibrant and very significant relationship with India,” Tauscher said. (ANI)

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