Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

The White House on Thursday firmly rejected the notion that Iran’s agreement to move low-enriched uranium off its soil, a deal Iran negotiated earlier this week with Turkey and Brazil, was sufficient to get the P-5+1 group of nuclear and developed countries to drop its pursuit of sanctions.

At a briefing the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said it was important to understand that “the proposal that Iran says they have entered into now is less than what they agreed to eight months ago”.

He argued that Iran had not agreed now, as it had in October, to sit down with the P-5+1 to hold a broader, fuller discussion about its nuclear program, nor had it agreed to provide unfettered access to nuclear facilities such as Qom. Additionally, “The proposal does not address in any form the increased enrichment that Iran said it was undertaking in order to provide material for their research reactor,” Mr. Gibbs said.

All these differences between what Iran was presently offering and its statements last October implied, Mr. Gibbs suggested, that the efforts of the Turks and the Brazilians did not address “all of the concerns that the P-5+1 and the larger international community have with Iran’s nuclear programme”. However he added that he acknowledged the role that Turkey and Brazil had played in “trying to get Iran to live up to its obligations”.

Mr. Gibbs nevertheless admitted that the proposal that was outlined on Monday “would be a step in the right direction because of the amount of low-enriched uranium that would be transferred [out of Iran],” – even if the last eight months have seen Iran continue with “increased enrichment” of uranium.

Regarding the discussions on sanctions currently underway at the United Nations Security Council, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, “The resolution that has been tabled is now being evaluated by the entire Security Council, and we will continue to consult broadly on its particulars in the coming days and weeks.”

He added that the United States was “still looking for and expects support within the Council for a new sanctions resolution, and as we have said many, many times, that not only with existing measures, but adding new measures and new teeth to this”.

To a question from The Hindu on what the U.S. had to say to countries such as India and others in the G-15 group who may be friendly with Iran and felt the fuel swap deal was a sign of Iran’s willingness to cooperate, Mr. Crowley said, “We would expect all countries in the world to live up to their international obligations.”

Labels: Iran sanctions, low-enriched uranium, nuclear power, P5+1

From The Hindu

The United States has reached a new agreement with the P-5+1 group of major developed countries on a “strong draft” of a resolution for sanctions against Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today.

Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Ms. Clinton made a reference to U.S. scepticism on Iran’s acceptance of a proposal to give up some of its low-enriched uranium in exchange for 20 percent enriched uranium from Turkey: “This announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide.”

As per the proposals agreed by Tehran in exchange for moving low-enriched uranium off its soil Iran would receive 20 percent enriched uranium for use by the Tehran Research Reactor for medical isotopes.

However the Secretary went on to argue that that there were a number of unanswered questions regarding the announcement coming from Tehran, despite the sincere efforts of both Turkey and Brazil to find a solution regarding Iran’s standoff with the international community over its nuclear program.

Ms. Clinton also outlined the next steps that the U.S. would take in this matter. She said that the P-5+1, which consists of Russia, China, the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany, along with the High Representative of the European Union, would proceed to “rally the international community on behalf of a strong sanctions resolution” that would send an unmistakable message about what is expected from Iran.

China and Russia had previously resisted the U.S.’s push for United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran, and it was anticipated that fuel-swap deal might further crystallise that resistance.

Labels: Hillary Clinton, Iran sanctions, nuclear power, P-5+1

From The Hindu

India and Pakistan have pursued nuclear weapons “in a way that has upset the balance of nuclear deterrent,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. She added that that was why the United States was working with both countries “very hard to try to make sure that their nuclear stockpiles are well tended to, and that they participate with us in trying to limit the number of nuclear weapons.”

Speaking at a lecture at University of Louisville, Kentucky, Ms. Clinton argued that the nature of the nuclear threat had changed: “As President Obama has said, the risk of a nuclear attack has actually increased. And the potential consequences of mishandling this challenge are deadly.” Nuclear terrorism presents a different challenge, but the consequences would still be devastating, she said.

Highlighting the growing threat of nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation a few days ahead of the 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, the Secretary illustrated what a doomsday scenario would look like given these risks. She said “A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb detonated in Times Square in New York City could kill a million people. Many more would suffer from the haemorrhaging and weakness that comes from radiation sickness.”

In the light of these risks, Ms. Clinton outlined three main elements of the U.S.’s strategy to safeguard itself and its allies against nuclear attacks: support for the basic framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a global effort to secure vulnerable nuclear material and enhance nuclear security and efforts to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent for the U.S. itself.

Regarding the impact of the new U.S.-Russia START deal on countries where non-proliferation challenges remained, Ms. Clinton said that she did not suggest that moves towards disarmament by the U.S. and Russia will convince Iran or North Korea to change their behaviour. “But ask yourselves, can our efforts help persuade other nations to support serious sanctions against Iran? I believe they could,” she argued.

In the aftermath of the recently announced Nuclear Posture Review and its implications for military expendituren the Secretary said, “Our budget devotes $7 billion for maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpile and complex… And over the next five years we intend to boost funding for these important activities by more than $5 billion dollars.”

Labels: nuclear balance, nuclear power, nuclear war