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United States Supports Expansion of G-8 Nonproliferation Effort, Officials Say By Mike Nartker MOSCOW — The United States is working to expand an effort conducted by the Group of Eight global economic powers to fund nonproliferation projects in Russia to include both new donor countries and new aid recipients, senior U.S. officials said last week (see GSN, April 26). During a 2002 summit in Canada, the G-8 members — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — initiated the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. Under the effort, the G-8 members pledged $20 billion over 10 years to fund nonproliferation projects starting in Russia. Since the 2002 summit, the effort has expanded to include several non-G-8 donor countries, including the Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland as well as the European Union. In advance of the June G-8 summit in the United States, Washington has worked to add eight countries to the Global Partnership, a senior U.S. State Department official said during a nonproliferation conference held here last week by the PIR Center. New donor members could include Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, said Edward Vazquez, director of the Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction in the State Department’s Bureau of Nonproliferation. While Russia would continue to remain the “priority” of the partnership’s efforts, the United States believes “the time is right” to expand the effort to include nonproliferation-related projects in other nations, such as other states of the former Soviet Union, Vazquez said. He said the United States would like to see the former Soviet states of Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan be invited to take part in the effort as recipients. During a keynote address last week at the conference, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow also emphasized the U.S. desire to expand the Global Partnership to include new recipient nations. He added that Ukraine was “a natural choice” to next receive funding for nonproliferation. “Russia will remain our priority, and widening the circle of recipient countries will not diminish or dilute Global Partnership efforts under way in Russia. Yet we believe that a global problem requires an appropriately global approach,” Vershbow said. Concerns Over Current Status of Global PartnershipWhile the United States is considering the possible expansion of the Global Partnership, there are concerns that the original aims of the project have not yet been reached. During the conference last week, PIR Center Director Vladimir Orlov said that in the past two years Russia had only received about $50 million in working funds for nonproliferation. At that rate, he said, it would take decades to meet the original 2002 goal (see GSN, Nov. 14, 2003). In addition, a number of issues have delayed various nonproliferation projects being conducted in Russia, according to participants at last week’s conference. For example, a long-standing dispute between the United States and Russia over establishing U.S. liability protection for damages and injuries that may result from nonproliferation activities has hindered progress, said Robert Einhorn, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The issue of liability protection has delayed U.S. and Russian efforts to eliminate a total of almost 70 tons of weapon-grade plutonium, enough to create 8,000 nuclear weapons, said Meggen Watt of the U.S. State Department Office of the Fissile Material Negotiator. Einhorn added that the dispute has not yet received the presidential-level attention needed to resolve the impasse (see GSN, March 11). Another concern is Russia’s reluctance to provide full site access to U.S. contractors engaged in nonproliferation projects, according to Rear Adm. John Byrd, head of the Cooperative Threat Reduction directorate of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Such a lack of access has delayed U.S. efforts to improve security at Russian nuclear facilities, he said last week. Russia is also concerned that some Global Partnership members want to “reshuffle” the effort’s priorities, said Mikhail Lysenko, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Security Affairs and Disarmament. Currently, most Global Partnership-aided projects in Russia focus on the two main priorities identified by Moscow — nuclear submarine dismantlement and chemical weapons disposal. Efforts in those two areas, though, have also experienced difficulties, according to conference participants Russia “badly needs” international aid to help dismantle nearly 200 decommissioned submarines that contain spent nuclear fuel that could be attractive to terrorists seeking to develop crude nuclear or radiological weapons, according to Sergei Antipov, a senior Russian atomic energy official. “We’re craving it,” Antipov said last week, referring to foreign assistance (see GSN, April 14). Antipov also said that partnership members are focusing too much on providing assistance in dismantling decommissioned submarines based in northwestern Russia and not enough on those on Russia’s eastern coast. Submarines there could be more easily accessed and thus more attractive to terrorists than those based on Russia’s Kola Peninsula, said Christina Chuen of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for Nonproliferation Studies. There are also concerns about the progress of constructing a chemical weapons disposal facility near the Russian town of Shchuchye. Canadian Ambassador to Russia Christopher Westdal said last week that a “procedural impasse” has resulted in the delay of a Canadian project to construct a rail spur at the site to transport chemical weapons agents from storage facilities to the planned destruction plant. He added, though, that he was “optimistic” that the dispute would soon be resolved. While Russia has made substantial progress in its chemical weapons disposal efforts over the past several years, concerns still remain as to lack of a clear overall plan and a lack of transparency in the progress, said James Harrison, deputy director of counterproliferation and arms control in the British Defense Ministry. He last week also blamed the uncertain nature of U.S. funding for the Shchuchye project both for delays in the disposal plant’s construction and for Russia’s overall chemical weapons disposal efforts (see GSN, Jan. 23). Speaking today in Washington, nonproliferation experts were divided as to whether now is the right time to consider expanding the Global Partnership to include projects beyond Russia. Einhorn told Global Security Newswire that despite funding concerns, the partnership should have the necessary resources to conduct projects both within Russia and outside, noting that expenditures for projects outside Russia should be less expensive. In addition, he said, now that the United States has taken the position that the partnership’s original $20 billion pledge reflected a “floor, not a ceiling,” it should be easier to obtain increased resources. For its part, though, Russian opposition may slow down efforts to expand the effort, Einhorn said. He said that Moscow views nonproliferation funding as a “zero-sum game” — every dollar spent on projects somewhere else is one less for Russian efforts. It is important to first fulfill the original intent of the Global Partnership — securing $20 billion in nonproliferation funding for Russia by 2012 — before considering an expansion of the effort, said Raphael Della Ratta of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. Once that goal is reached, though, “then make it global in more ways than one,” he said.
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