U.S.-Russia:  Putin Announces Nuclear Reductions

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to cut the Russian nuclear arsenal to a range of 1,500 to 2,200 warheads in response to a similar U.S. offer, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday.

“President Putin has now responded to [U.S. President George W. Bush’s] Washington-Crawford statement of reducing our strategic offensive inventory down to a range of 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads,” Powell said (Elaine Monaghan, Reuters/Yahoo.com, Dec. 13).

The announced U.S. reduction (see GSN, Nov. 14) is a “pretty firm number,” Powell said, but the United States welcomed discussion on the issue.  “We want to hear why [Russia] feels that particular number is appropriate,” Powell said.  “Obviously our range fits within their range.  So there’s a way to square this circle.  I don’t know that it’s a problem” (Federal News Service transcript, Dec. 13).

The United States and Russia will continue work on a new arms control framework in order to bring everything into “some legal form” that the two presidents could sign when Bush travels to Moscow next year, Powell said (see GSN, Dec. 11). 

Powell said that the recent U.S. decision to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty had not triggered a new arms race with Russia (see related GSN story, today).

“Quite the contrary,” he said.  “The Russians have said they don’t see this as a threat to their national security and secondly they are going to go ahead with very deep cuts in their strategic offensive forces” (Monaghan, Reuters/Yahoo.com).

Putin Wants Cuts Codified

Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Russia’s support for a legally binding treaty to codify the strategic nuclear reductions.

“I believe these agreements should have legal treaty form,” Putin said in an interview Thursday.  “I think without that, it could so happen that partners would have suspicions and misgivings about what was happening with the other party’s weapons—whether they had actually been reduced, what were the actual numbers, where the weapons were, had they been destroyed or had they just been dismantled and put in storage somewhere.  If they are stored they constitute so-called ‘reconstitution potential.’  In other words, the possibility would remain that those weapons could be put back on missiles,” Putin said.

“In other words, if we do have such a legal treaty, legal agreement, a transparent one with proper verification measures, the entire world could be safer and feel calmer,” Putin said.

Russian Nuclear Plans

Although Russia reserved the right to deploy more multiple-warhead ICBMs, Putin said Russia had no reason to do so at this time.  Russia’s deterrence capability would be secure even if the United States deployed a limited missile defense system, he said (Financial Times, Dec. 14).

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U.S.-China: High-Level Talks Will Not Be Negotiations

U.S.-Chinese discussions about strategic nuclear weapons would differ from U.S.-Russian discussions, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday.  U.S. President George W. Bush had offered new, high-level talks to China (see GSN, Dec. 14) when he telephoned Chinese President Jiang Zemin to inform him of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, Dec. 13).

Boucher said the new talks will not be “a formal negotiation with the Chinese on missiles.  It’s not the same, say, as the kind of discussions we will have with the Russians about offensive cuts and bringing forward provisions of arms control.”

“Our discussions with the Chinese have been ongoing consultations and discussions about strategic issues, about our missile defense plans, seeking to gain their understanding, seeking to make sure that they knew what we were thinking, where we were going, and to hear back their views from them.  So that is a process that has been ongoing that we will continue,” Boucher said (U.S. State Department release, Dec. 14).

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North Korea:  Officials Visit South Korean Nuclear Facilities

A delegation of 20 North Korean officials arrived in South Korea yesterday to begin a two-week visit to observe South Korean nuclear power plants, South Korean officials said.  The group included officials involved in the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea (see GSN, Dec. 11).

“The North Koreans are scheduled to look at nuclear power stations which have light-water reactors and plants that are producing parts to be used in the North Korean reactor construction,” said an official for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization.  KEDO is an international consortium that helps build the reactors in exchange for freezing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program (Korea Herald, Dec. 17).

The North Korean delegation is scheduled to visit nuclear power plants in Ulchin on the east coast and Kori on the southeast coast, and Doosan Heavy Industries Company on the south coast, where reactors for the North Korean plants are under construction, according to the Associated Press.

KEDO is responsible for training hundreds of North Koreans to operate the two reactors once they are installed in North Korea.  In addition to this month’s delegates, the organization expects to train 290 more North Koreans in South Korea by the end of next year (Associated Press/South China Morning Post, Dec. 17).

“It is the first time for North Korea to get access to the facilities,” said a senior KEDO official, according to Agence France-Presse (Jun Kwan-Woo, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 17).

North Korean officials visited nuclear power plants in Spain and Sweden last month (Korea Herald, Dec. 18).

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IAEA:  U.N. Urges Compliance With Agency Activities

The U.N. General Assembly Friday urged all member states to support International Atomic Energy Agency efforts to prevent terrorist attacks involving nuclear and other radioactive materials.  Assembly members adopted a resolution calling on states to strengthen the safety of their nuclear installations, to implement and enhance safeguard agreements on nuclear materials and to assist the IAEA’s work.  The resolution also urged states to work with the IAEA to strengthen technical assistance for developing countries.

The assembly called on North Korea to comply with its safeguard agreements and to allow the IAEA to verify the country's compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (see GSN, Dec. 3).  The assembly said it could not conclude whether nuclear material had been diverted from North Korea.

The resolution also addressed nuclear issues in Middle Eastern states.  It requested that those states comply with IAEA safeguards on all nuclear activities, adhere to international nonproliferation regimes and establish a nuclear weapon-free zone.

The resolution received 150 votes in favor with only North Korea voting against it.  Cote d'Ivoire and Laos abstained (U.N. release, Dec. 14).

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