Iran and Kazakhstan: BFF?

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Lost in the noise over “National Nuclear Technology Day”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1982/more-about-irans-fmp was some of the diplomatic news around that time. The Syrian foreign minister visited Iran and affirmed Iran’s right to enrich uranium. Just a couple of days before, -so did- the President of Kazakhstan affirmed Iran’s right to “use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” during a visit there by Ahmadinejad. But that wasn’t all.

“According to Payvand News”:http://www.payvand.com/news/09/apr/1070.html:

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev stressed Iran’s right on Monday to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The Kazak president made the statement after his private talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who arrived in Astana on Monday for a two-day official visit.

The two presidents attended a joint press conference after discussing ways to further develop Tehran-Astana relations and cooperation.

[snip]

Referring to the issue of establishing a nuclear fuel bank, a proposal backed by the US, Nazarbayev voiced Kazakhstan’s readiness to establish the bank.

“If a nuclear fuel bank is to be established, Kazakhstan has the ability to do so,” Nazarbayev said.

That’s interesting, because Iran has enrichment technology but precious little uranium, whereas “Kazakhstan has heaps and heaps of uranium”:http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/26/news/international/uranium_kazakhstan.fortune/, but no enrichment technology. (It currently “depends on Russia”:http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/kazakhstans-nuclear-ambitions for enrichment services.)

I’m not sure this is what the Obama Administration had in mind, actually…

Update: “according to the WSJ”:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123894229162890323.html, the Obama Administration is considering precisely this option: a fuel bank based in Kazakhstan, with Iran as its most important stakeholder. The article says that the fuel bank would be open to countries that “renounce nuclear weapons,” but Iran, as an NPT NNWS, has done so; the question is whether the stakeholders renounce national nuclear fuel cycles. Otherwise, it’s a case of “having one’s yellowcake and eating it, too”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1883/having-ones-yellowcake-and-eating-it-too.

Putting Things In Perspective

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This blog advertises itself as being about arms control, but you’ll notice that it’s all about Iran, North Korea, Syria, and occasionally places like Libya or the UAE, with glances from time to time in the direction of New Delhi or Moscow. (Back when Anya blogged here, you’d see the occasional Belarus item, of course.) The point? Above all else — and this is my personal view, but I think Paul would agree — this is really a blog about the nonproliferation regime and its problems.

Why? Because it’s interesting. It’s full of new developments and there are all sorts of little puzzles to solve. This is why people play Sudoku, too. It doesn’t suggest that any of these topics is necessarily the most important thing going on.

The P-Word

And what is? Well, if you worry about the spread of nuclear weapons or the possibility of nuclear terrorism, then Issue Number One is not Iran, and it’s not North Korea, either. At the moment, it’s not even MPC&A in Russia. It’s Pakistan, and how much longer there will be a Pakistan as we know it.

Iran’s always a hot topic because a radical theocracy might get the Bomb. “But what if the Bomb gets a radical theocracy?”:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1220444321280&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull A _really_ radical one, too. They do have TV and the Internet in Iran, you realize, but Afghanistan didn’t when the Taliban were in charge there, and Pakistan is now headed down that path. When the corrupt old order crumbles and “Commander of the Faithful” Mullah Omar assumes power over 175 million hungry mouths and who-knows-how-many nuclear warheads, then the fun begins.

That’s when the “nonproliferation”:http://www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/ crowd sort of runs out of things to say, and the “counterproliferation”:http://www.ndu.edu/WMDCenter/ folks pick up.

All of our national debates over Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea pale in comparison to this scenario, which I’m extremely sorry to say is no longer a theoretical possibility, but is “unfolding”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14punjab.html “before”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17/AR2009041702378.html “our”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/asia/17pstan.html “eyes”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041901731.html.

Let’s hope there’s still time to rescue the situation. Unfortunately, it’s fair to say that we won’t have much help from the current Pakistani authorities, who — even “after”:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/12/pakistan_over_50_kil.php “everything”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6503477.stm “that’s”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm “happened”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3041148/Islamabad-Marriott-hotel-bomb-killed-52-says-Pakistan.html there — are seemingly “unable”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/18/AR2009041800415.html or “unwilling”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041900752.html to recognize that either their country’s problems or the solutions to them lie within their own borders. And that, of course, is the problem.

Old News

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Awhile back, I was just so pleased with myself for making the connection between “cars and centrifuges”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1923/rimz-of-mass-destruction — for example, how automakers are used as a false end-users for dual-use machine tools, hard-to-get materials, and the like.

It turns out this has been going on for decades. Take the case of “Van Doornes Transmissie”:http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=770085, which _Nucleonics Week_ flagged waaaaay back in 1981:

bq. THE DUTCH JUSTICE MINISTRY TURNED DOWN A REQUEST FOR A REPORT on the so-called Khan affair from the special parliamentary committee that intends to conduct its own probe into the matter. The Justice Ministry probe is known to concern two companies — Van Doornes Transmissie and Fysisch Dynamisch Onderzoekslaboratorium (FDO), a subsidiary of VMF Stork Nv. A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani scientist, is alleged to have obtained uranium enrichment knowhow while working for Ultracentrifuge Nederland and FDO in the 1970s. The two companies named in the government probe are believed to be involved in the export of strategic goods to Pakistan. The Justice Ministry said it doesn’t know when its probe will be complete, though a member of Parliament concerned with nuclear affairs said he hopes the ministry’s work will be completed in two or three months.

VDT reportedly shipped thousands of maraging steel rotor tubes to Pakistan in the 1970s.

So, like it says up at the top, old news.

P is for Persian

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That’s what Iran’s IAEA rep Ali Asgar Soltanieh says, “according to Fars News”:http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8801291027:

bq. About Iran’s new centrifuges, Soltanieh said, “Previous centrifuges are not centrifuges of Pakistan class – they are “Persian” class (P-1, P-2 or IR-1, IR-2).

Yep. And in Libya, the P-1 was called the L-1.

Now, as Iranian nuclear-program howlers go, that doesn’t crack the top ten. But let’s recall all that LEU and HEU cross-contamination found on Iran’s first set of P-1s, some of Khan Research Labs’ castoffs. Would Mr. Soltanieh care to take credit for those traces, after all?

Once upon a time, of course, some devices not unlike the P-1 were called “SNOR and CNOR”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1401/when-did-pakistan-stop-stealing-urenco-designs. But now I’m rehashing ancient history.

Hibbs on Syria U Traces

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So it turns out that we’re just living in James Acton’s shadow over here.

Mark Hibbs has details on the “uranium oxide traces”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1881/update-from-the-pencil-factory that the IAEA found in Syria. It’s in the the April 6 issue of “NuclearFuel”:http://www.platts.com/Nuclear/Newsletters%20&%20Reports/Nuclear%20Fuel/.

First, it appears that “James’s view”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2106/new-evidence-of-nork-syria-link of the 80+ particles of anthropogenic U found in Syria is shared within the IAEA:

bq. Early this year, a senior UN safeguards official said the IAEA believed that the particles appeared to be NATU that had oxidized (NF, 23 Feb., 5). According to the official, the finding was consistent with the hypothesis the uranium was metallic fuel material for a DPRK-type production reactor.

Second, Hibbs goes on to relate that there’s not a great deal of research on the behavior of U particles under various conditions, but it’s generally accepted that if they are divided finely enough, they’ll oxidize all the way through.

Reading between the lines, it seems that the number of particles found in the swipe samples — now described by Hibbs as numbering close to 100 — is simply too many to be accounted for by cross-contamination. So much for “my pet theory”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox. As long as we’re not talking about something off-the-wall, like HWR fuel — this was said to be a “Magnox”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1865/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-magnox reactor, remember? — then in the absence of additional information, it’s only reasonable to believe that there was a lot of uranium metal onsite, which was blasted into itty-bitty bits. (That’s a technical term.)

Hibbs also offers a great deal of insight into the state of attribution technology for particles of this type. The U.S. has traces of U from North Korea; is it sharing the “fingerprints” with the IAEA for purposes of comparison? We don’t know. But that Acton fellow has “written about the North Korea traces”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2163/yet-more-on-nork-heu.

Lastly, it seems that the Syrian government has refused requests to return to the scene of the swipes to take more samples. Once stung, twice shy. This once again raises the question of when the IAEA will be willing to use its power of “special inspections”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1886/syria-ups-and-downs-of-special-inspections. Any day now, folks!

If the subject interests you, Pierre Goldschmidt makes special inspections Topic A in a recent paper on “strengthening the nonproliferation regime”:http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/?fa=view&id=22943&prog=zgp&proj=znpp. Some guy named James Acton also “spoke about this recently”:http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/?fa=eventDetail&id=1300&prog=zgp&proj=zted.

I think I’ll go find something else to blog about now.

M Rubin And Iran Hackery

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Whatever one thinks about the Iran nuclear situation, “this WSJ piece”:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958201328712205.html from Michael Rubin is pure hackery.

There are too many errors to bother with, but here are a few fun facts:

First, Tehran did fulfill many, though certainly not all, of its pledges in its 2003 and 2004 agreements with the E3. For example, Iran did cooperate with many aspects of the IAEA’s investigation and signed and implemented an additional protocol to its CSA.

Second, Iran did make several proposals to the E3 in 2005. I know it might be hassle to ferret them out, so “here they are.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran_Nuclear_Proposals Oh, and there’s “this one”:http://www.armscontrol.org/pdf/2003_Spring_Iran_Proposal.pdf from 2003 that I think 1 or 2 people may have mentioned before.

Farideh Farhi has “more.”:http://icga.blogspot.com/2009/04/on-irans-sincerity-in-nuclear-talks.html I’ve read an English translation of the Aftab News interview with Rowhani that Rubin quotes from (I am not at liberty to post it, unfortunately). Dr. Farhi is correct that it doesn’t come close to supporting Rubin’s claim that “Rowhani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator at the time, acknowledged his government’s insincerity.”

Rubin is also the primary drafter of “this,”:http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/8448 in case anyone needs a reminder.

*Update:*

I realized that I was not clear about one issue: Iran’s well-known lack of enthusiasm for suspending its enrichment program does not equate to insincerity or an unwillingness to compromise. Whether talks are worth pursuing is a different issue.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About SBX

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Just one passing thought.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that Allen Thomson maintains “voluminous”:http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/sbx.pdf “sourcebooks”:http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/sbx-v2.pdf on “SBX”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1986/all-teed-up-and-nowhere-to-go.

Some people scrapbook. Some blog. Others, it seems, research!

Moussavi on the Nuclear Issue

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FT “interviews”:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2466224-2824-11de-8dbf-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=be75219e-940a-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html leading Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi:

You recently said you would pursue détente with the west if you were elected. How are you going to have that approach with the US while not compromising on the nuclear programme?

I consider détente the principle to build confidence between Iran and other countries. I think the recent discourse, which differentiates between nuclear technology and nuclear weapons is a good one. The more this differentiation is emphasised, the greater the possibility of détente.

Would Iran agree to suspend uranium enrichment if you were president?

No one in Iran would accept suspension.

And you would not accept it, either?

No. The problem is that we had a bad experience with suspension. It was first done [2003-2005] to discuss issues and remove suspicion but it turned into a tool to deprive Iran of having access to nuclear technology. There is a bad memory in this regard.

How would you remove tensions then?

Progress in nuclear technology and its peaceful use is the right of all countries and nations. This is what we have painfully achieved with our own efforts. No one will retreat. But we have to see what solutions or in other words what guarantees can be found to verify the non-diversion of the programme into nuclear weapons.

What kind of solutions?

They can be reached in technical negotiations.

How influential can the president be in nuclear decisions while the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last say in this issue?

Decisions on nuclear technology definitely need to be based on a thorough consensus at the national level. Obviously, the role of the supreme leader is very determining.

So far, however, no solution has been found. How would your presidency help?

The issue doesn’t only depend on us. It will also depend on the discourse the Americans use and the issues they pursue. The more realistic they become and recognise Iran in this issue, naturally the better the ground will be prepared to find solutions.

Still working on that longer post.

North Korea’s Reprocessing Option

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“Mark Landler in the NYT”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/world/asia/15korea.html asked Sig Hecker for his view:

Siegfried S. Hecker, a professor at Stanford University who has extensively toured the plant, said it would take six months to rebuild the cooling tower that North Korea blew up in June 2008 as part of an earlier agreement.

But Dr. Hecker said the North Koreans could begin reprocessing plutonium from an existing cache in a couple of weeks. That would allow them to make at least one additional bomb, he said, which might embolden them to conduct another test and refine their bomb-making expertise.

“With Yongbyon disabled, it meant no more bombs and no better bombs,” Dr. Hecker said.

The North had earlier agreed in principle to give up its nuclear material and any weapons, but talks on how to reach that goal stalled. During the Bush administration, North Korea is believed to have produced enough bomb-grade plutonium for six or more nuclear weapons.

Dr. Hecker said that throwing out inspectors also raised the risk that North Korea could sell nuclear material to other countries.

The possibility of a second nuclear test -was mooted at least as early as last month- has been mooted “recently”:http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2009/03/26/62/0401000000AEN20090326007400315F.HTML.

Would it get the North Koreans anything? As mentioned above, it could help them to validate a bomb design. But would it soften up the U.S. or the neighbors? I doubt it.