Jan 1 2000 [N] India and Pakistan exchange lists
of their nuclear installations and facilities under the Pakistani-Indian Agreement
on the Prohibition of Attacks against Nuclear Installations. The agreement
requires the countries to exchange list of their respective installations
on the first working day of every year.
Jan 8 2000 [N] The U.S. Congress receives plans
for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a new, semi-autonomous
agency. The plan calls for the Director of the NNSA to serve as an Undersecretary
of Energy and to run the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons programs.
The NNSA will manage the MPC&A
programs, efforts to eliminate fissile materials, and support global and regional
nonproliferation programs.
Jan 17 2000 [N] Acting Russian President Vladimir
Putin signs into law a new national security strategy that lowers the threshold
on first-use of nuclear weapons. The National Security Concept of the Russian
Federation allows the use of all existing forces including nuclear weapons
to oppose any attack, nuclear or conventional, if other efforts fail to repel
the aggressor and allows the first-use of nuclear arms "in case of a threat
to the existence of the Russian Federation." The new military guidance proclaims
Russia's intention to oppose domestic unrest and secessionist challenges as
well as American domination of the international arena. The doctrine states,
"The Russian Federation must have nuclear forces capable of delivering specified
damage to any aggressor state or a coalition of states in any situation."
Jan 18 2000 [M] A U.S. prototype missile-defense
kill vehicle fails to find and destroy the Minuteman-2 missile playing the
role of an enemy missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Critics of NMD note
that the unsuccessful test demonstrates that the technology is not developed
enough to begin deployment.
Jan 21 2000 [C] A Chechen spokesman claims the rebels were prepared to detonate chemical and ammonia bombs in
Chechnya, Russia, to prevent Russian troops from entering Grozny, the capital.
Jan 21 2000 [M] Top U.S. and Russian officials
end talks in Geneva on modifications to the ABM
Treaty. The talks produce no new agreements.
Jan 25 2000 [N] A five-member
IAEA
inspection team conducts an inventory verification of nuclear material at
Tuwaitha, Iraq. The current IAEA visit comes under the framework of the NPT,
to which Iraq and other countries with nuclear energy programs are signatories.
The inspection of Iraq's uranium stocks is the first since UN arms monitors
left Iraq in December 1998, but it is not related to continuing United Nations'
efforts (see UNMOVIC)
to monitor Iraq's possible WMD activities. According to the IAEA, the inspections
conducted as part of the physical inventory verification are not sufficient
to provide assurance that Iraq is in full compliance with all of its safeguards
obligations.
Jan 25 2000 [O] U.S. and Chinese officials resume
the military-to-military contacts that China halted in spring 1998 after the
accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by U.S. jets.
Jan 26 2000 [O] The UN Security Council appoints
Hans Blix of Sweden as the head of UNMOVIC,
the UN weapons inspection agency for Iraq. Blix is the former head of the
IAEA, which had co-responsibility with the UN Special Commission for Iraq
for overseeing the destruction of Iraq's WMD in the aftermath of the 1991
Gulf War.
Jan 27 2000 [N] U.S. President Bill Clinton
appoints former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John M. Shalikashvili
to lead a White House task force to get bipartisan legislative support for
U.S. ratification
of the CTBT.
Jan 22-28 2000 [O] The United States and North
Korea resume bilateral talks in Berlin, where North Korea announces that it
is reconsidering its moratorium on long-range missile tests in response to
the U.S. interceptor tests and discussions of NMD
deployment to counter emerging missile threats, from states like North Korea.
Feb 1 2000 [N] KEDO
announces that the completion of the two light-water reactors in North Korea
(as promised under the U.S.-DPRK Agreed
Framework) would be at least four years behind schedule. In response to
this, North Korea threatened to restart its mothballed Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
Feb 2 2000 [B] An unclassified CIA report claims
that during January-June 1999, Russia exported dual-use biotechnology to Iran
that could potentially be used to produce biological weapons.
Feb 5 2000 [N] Belarus and Russia reportedly
reach an agreement on extending Russia's nuclear
umbrella to Belarus.
Feb 9 2000 [M] Russia successfully test-fires
a Topol-M ICBM from
a silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
Feb 9 2000 [O] Russia and North Korea sign a
bilateral friendship treaty, which would allow for sales of defensive military
systems on a commercial basis, as well as technical support to the North's
military.
Feb 10 2000 [O, M] At the
Conference
on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, China's envoy, Hu Xiaodi, formally proposes
that the CD set up a committee and begin negotiations to conclude a global
treaty that would ban the testing, deployment, and use of weapons in outer
space. Russia's Ambassador on Disarmament Vasily Sidorov backs the proposal.
March 1 2000 [N] The Russian Defense Ministry reports that Chechen rebels had threatened to use
radiological agents, obtained from nuclear materials being stored at a facility 30 kilometers southeast of Grozny,
against Russian troops.
March 1 2000 [N] Russian president-elect Vladimir
Putin visits the closed city of Snezhinsk (formerly known as Chelyabinsk-70),
where a key nuclear weapons production and research facility is located. Putin
urges the Duma to ratify START II.
Putin also reaffirms his intent to restructure Russia's nuclear industry.
March 2 2000 [M] Another round of U.S.-Russian
talks on possible ABM Treaty revisions
held in Geneva fails to produce any agreement. In its press statement, the
Russian delegation states that it would not seriously consider revisions to
the ABM Treaty.
March 7 2000 [N] China urges India to stop its
military nuclear program in talks on global and regional security issues.
China's Foreign Ministry Spokesman states that India should obey a UN Security
Council resolution that condemns the 1998 nuclear tests and calls on India
and Pakistan to stop all nuclear development programs. Indian Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee maintains that India would keep its nuclear weapons until
all WMD are dismantled, and that India "will continue to be guided by [the]
imperative of India's strategic autonomy and the need to maintain [a] credible
nuclear deterrent."
March 14 2000 [N] Russia and the Netherlands sign
a cooperative agreement for the dismantling of old Russian nuclear warheads
and nuclear submarines.
March 14 2000 [N, B, C] U.S. President Bill Clinton
signs the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. The Act links additional U.S.
funding for the Russian space station to guarantees that Russia will not transfer
missile technology or nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons to Iran. The
Act would permit the U.S. president to president would have the option of
suspending arms sales sales or economic aid to nations helping Iran's weapons
Programs. In 1999, the United States announced sanctions against 10 Russian
companies for transferring weapons materials and technology to Iran.
March 23 2000 [N] The United States conducts a
sub-critical nuclear
test at the Low-Yield Nuclear Explosive Research (LYNER) facility on the
Nevada Test Site.
March 26 2000 [O] Vladimir Putin is elected President
of the Russian Federation.
March 29 2000 [N] According to the Tokyo police
department, a Japanese cult acquired classified information about nuclear
installations from Russia, Ukraine, China, South Korea, and Taiwan by breaking
into computer networks. The thefts were discovered when the Tokyo police searched
the records of companies related to Aum Shinrikyo's operations. In March 1995,
10 Aum Shinrikyo members organized a sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway
system.
April 5 2000 [N] Nearly a ton of radioactive material
hidden in 10 lead boxes is recovered from a truckload of scrap metal bound
for Pakistan via Iran on a trip that began in Kazakhstan. The seized material
is emitting enough radiation to cause radiation sickness. The discovery reinforces
worries about smuggling of nuclear material from countries of the former Soviet
Union.
April 6 2000 [N] The United States conducts a
sub-critical test
at the Nevada Test Site.
April 11 2000 [O] China announces the resumption
of the nonproliferation talks with the United States, which had been suspended
in 1999 in response to NATO's
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
April 14 2000 [N] The Russian Duma ratifies START
II, which Presidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed in 1993. START
II will reduce U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads to 3,000-3,500
each from current levels of about 6,000 each. Treaty provisions do not, however,
require warheads to be dismantled. Instead, START II focuses on reducing delivery
systems. Because the U.S. Senate ratified START II in January 1996, it must
vote on the ABM Demarcation Agreement (related to the 1972 ABM
Treaty) and agreements to extend START II deadlines, both of which were
concluded between the United States and Russia in September 1997.
April 14 2000 [M] In their letter to the U.S.
President, 25 Republican Senators expressed hope that the Senate would defeat
any agreement between the United States and Russia that would only allow a
limited NMD system.
April 17 2000 [M] Russian President Vladimir Putin
announces that Russia was ready to conduct talks with the United States on
TMD.
April 18 2000 [M] Another round of consultations
on modification of the ABM Treaty
achieves no progress in Geneva. The Russians say they would not be bound by
any agreements should the United States withdraw from the Treaty and deploy
an NMD system.
April 21 2000 [N] The Russian Duma ratifies the
CTBT.
April 21 2000 [M] U.S. Ambassador to Russia James
Collins confirms that negotiators handed Russia a draft of proposed amendments
to the ABM Treaty, in the form of a new protocol that would allow the United
States to build an NMD system.
April 22 2000 [N] Russia's new National Military
Doctrine enters into
force. The Doctrine stresses the importance of nuclear weapons for Russia's
national security and notes that Russia is ready to further reduce its nuclear
arsenal both on bilateral (with the United States) and multilateral levels
(with other nuclear weapon
states) to the minimum levels that are required to maintain strategic
stability.
April 24-May 19 2000 [N] The Review Conference
for the states parties
to the NPT is held in New York. The
five nuclear weapon states
issue a declaration promising to reduce their stockpiles, but attach no deadline.
The Conference also adopts Thirteen Practical Steps toward Nuclear Disarmament.
May 2000 [N] In exchange for a shipment of 400,000
tons of food through the World Food Program, famine-stricken North Korea allows
U.S. officials to reinspect an enormous tunnel at the Kumchang-ri military
site suspected to be part of a secret nuclear weapons program. Officials from
the U.S. State Department report that the second visit to Kumchang-ni yielded
no evidence of disturbing activities.
May 4 2000 [M, N] Russian President Putin signed
into law the 1997 Protocols to the ABM
Treaty.
May 7 2000 [N] Russian President Vladimir Putin
signs a decree that allows, under special circumstances, the export of nuclear
materials, equipment, and technology for peaceful purposes to countries that
do not have nuclear armaments but have not put their peaceful nuclear activities
under full-scope IAEA safeguards.
However, the decree requires application of IAEA safeguards to any nuclear
exports to such countries.
May 10 2000 [N] The U.S. House Armed Forces
Committee defeats a proposal to unilaterally reduce the strategic forces to
START II levels (3,000 to 3,500
long-range nuclear warheads) before the treaty enters
into force.
May 12 2000 [N] The Defence and Foreign Affairs
Journal reports that the Taiwanese military has obtained a pair of medium-range
ballistic missiles
with two nuclear warheads. The report says the nuclear weapons and carriers
were originally owned by South Africa and obtained in an under-the-counter
deal brokered by an "intermediary Middle Eastern country." Taiwanese officials
strongly deny the report.
May 15 2000 [N] The
IAEA
reports to the NPT Review Conference
that since December 1998, it "[has not been] in a position to implement its
Security Council-mandated activities in Iraq" and was therefore not able to
provide assurances that Iraq was compliant with its obligations under the
UN Security Council Resolutions regarding the dismantlement of any potential
nuclear weapons facilities. With respect to its NPT Article III obligations,
the IAEA notes that although it carried out a physical inventory verification
of nuclear material in January 2000, "this inspection is not... sufficient
to provide assurance that Iraq is in full compliance with all its safeguards
obligations."
May 20 2000 [N] After last-minute negotiations
at the NPT Review Conference, the
world's five main nuclear powers, the United States, Russia, France, Britain,
and China, pledge to make "an unequivocal undertaking ... to accomplish the
total elimination of their nuclear arsenals." They did not include any timetable
or implementation plan; nor did they agree to any provision that would prohibit
the first use of nuclear weapons.
May 25-27 2000 [N] The U.S. inspection team
at North Korea's Kumchang-ri site claims that it found no evidence of North
Korea's alleged clandestine nuclear activity. North Korea reportedly provided
unhampered access to the site and cooperated fully with the inspection team.
May 28 2000 [N] Pakistan offers to negotiate
a nuclear restraint regime with India to avoid a nuclear and conventional
arms race, and build confidence in the region. Pakistan expressed willingness
to consider any restraint arrangement on a reciprocal basis with India.
June 2000 [N] The Russian Ministry for Atomic
Energy (Minatom) announces that it will proceed with sub-critical
nuclear weapons testing at the Novaya Zemlya test site.
June 6 2000 [N, M] U.S. President Bill Clinton
and Russian President Vladimir Putin reach an Early Warning Agreement. According
to a U.S. defense official two Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs) are involved.
The first concerns the flow of early warning information to a Joint Data Exchange
Center in Moscow, which is scheduled to open in 2001. The second MOA addresses
pre-launch notification arrangements.
June 7 2000 [N] The U.S. Senate allows the president
to make unilateral reductions in strategic nuclear weapons systems.
June 9 2000 [N] In its instruments of ratification,
France issues an "interpretive declaration" to the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court, in which it excludes nuclear weapons from the purview of the
International Criminal Court. The French "interpretive declaration" states
that Article 8 of the Statute (naming the use of certain categories of weapon
as expressly prohibited) refers "solely to conventional weapons and can neither
regulate nor prohibit the possible use of nuclear weapons nor impair the other
rules of international law applicable to other weapons necessary to the exercise
by France of its inherent right of self-defence, unless nuclear weapons or
the other weapons referred to herein become subject in the future to a comprehensive
ban and are specified in an annex to the Statute..."
June 12 2000 [N] U.S. President Bill Clinton
issues an executive order to guarantee that money paid to Russia as part of
the "Megatons to Megawatts" HEU
Deal would not be seized by creditors. The order allows resumed shipments
of Russian uranium from dismantled nuclear weapons to the United States.
June 15 2000 [N] In a speech to German politicians
and businessmen, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggests a Central and East
European Nuclear-Weapons-Free
Zone.
June 19 2000 [O] The United States lifts its
trade embargo against North Korea with the exception of trade in dual-use
goods. The United States had announced in September 1999 that it would lift
the embargo following North Korea's promise to freeze its missile tests.
June 19 2000 [B, C] This date is 75th Anniversary
of the
Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical and biological weapons.
June 20 2000 [N] The Pakistani Deputy Foreign
Minister does not rule out first-use of nuclear weapons in the event of a
conventional attack against it, which would threaten Pakistan's existence.
July 1 2000 [N] North Korea threatens to resume
its nuclear program if the United States does not compensate it for the loss
of electricity resulting from the delay in constructing the light-water reactors
pledged under the Agreed
Framework in exchange for North Korea halting.
July 4 2000 [N, B, C] The Chairman of the Arab
League states that the work on the draft treaty on the Middle East WMD-Free-Zone
is progressing, and that the treaty would apply not only to Arab states, but
also to Iran, Israel, and Turkey.
July 7 2000 [M] During a U.S. test to develop
an NMD system, the interceptor missile fails to hit its target. The problem
occurs after the kill vehicle fails to separate from its booster.
July 19 2000 [M] Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin issue a joint statement noting deep
concerns about U.S. plans to deploy an NMD. The statement reaffirms the ABM
Treaty as the "cornerstone of global strategic stability and international
security and the basis of the structure of key international agreements on
the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive weapons and on the non-proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction."
July 30 2000 [N] Conventional explosives are
used to destroy the last of the nuclear testing infrastructure at Kazakhstan's
Semipalatinsk test site. Elimination of the nuclear testing infrastructure
is completed under a five-year Kazakhstani-U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction
project. Following the explosion, U.S. officials sign an amendment to increase
U.S. funding for the Kazakhstan Weapons of Mass Destruction Elimination Initiative.
The funds will be used to eliminate other plants that manufacture weapons
of mass destruction, in particular the former Stepnogorsk Biological Weapons
Production Facility.
Aug 11 2000 [N] Russian President and his defense
council decided that the Russian strategic arsenal would have to shrink to
a level of 1500 warheads.
Aug 12 2000 [N] The Russian nuclear-powered
submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea. All 118 crewmembers on board
were pronounced dead eight days later.
Aug 16 2000 [C] India passes a law banning the
production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical agents
and weapons, including those used for riot control in warfare situations.
Aug 28-31 2000 [N] Russia's atomic energy agency
Minatom and the Russian Defense Ministry conduct sub-critical
nuclear tests at the Novaya Zemlya test site.
Sept 1 2000 [M] U.S. President Bill Clinton
announces that he will defer the decision on NMD deployment until the next
president is elected. In a speech at Georgetown University, President Clinton
says it is too early to commit the United States to a missile defense system,
but orders the Pentagon to pursue a "robust program" to prove the effectiveness
of the technology.
Sept 1 2000 [N] U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Kasyanov sign an agreement under which the United States and Russia will each
dispose of 34 tons of
weapons-grade
plutonium. New facilities are scheduled to be built beginning in 2007 to convert
some of the plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for nuclear reactors, while the
remainder of the waste will be immobilized. The process will be monitored
by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The U.S. Congress approved $200
million in aid to help Russia carry out its side of the agreement.
Sept 2 2000 [N] Indian National Security Advisor
Brajesh Mishra announces that the country has no intention of signing the
CTBT in the near future. Mishra states
that a decision on signing the Treaty can only be made after reaching political
consensus in India.
Sept 3 2000 [N] Russia's Minatom and the Russian
Defense Ministry conduct a sub-critical
nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic.
Sept 6 2000 [N] Speaking at the U.S. Millennium
Summit in New York, Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf offers India a no-war
pact and states that he seeks a South Asia free from all nuclear weapons.
India implictly rejects this offer.
Sept 11 2000 [N, M] The Indian government commissions
its first-ever Strategic Defense Review (SDR). The SDR claims that China has
the largest nuclear and missile development program in the world. Additionally,
the SDR urges the Indian government to develop the capability to conduct sub-critical
tests to fully integrate the benefits of the Shakti series of nuclear
tests carried out at Pokhran in May 1998. It also expresses apprehension about
the status of the Chinese tactical
nuclear weapons arsenal and the possibilities of proliferation to Pakistan.
Sept 15 2000 [N] India reaffirms its voluntary
moratorium on nuclear testing and its commitment not to block the CTBT's
entry into force.
Later, India says that it would withdraw from the moratorium if its security
were endangered.
Sept 25 2000 [N] Pakistan announces that it
would adhere to its moratorium on further nuclear testing, and would not be
the first to resume nuclear testing.
Sept 27 2000 [M] Russia test-fires the
mobile Topol-M missile. The Topol-M will enter service after four more successful
test launches. The mobile Topol-M is expected to replace the aging mobile
RS-12M Topol, which is scheduled for retirement in 2010.
Sept 27 2000 [N] The Pakistani Foreign Minister
states that Pakistan is interested in signing the CTBT
and that the country had no desire to conduct further tests. He notes that
Pakistan would have to build national consensus in order to make such a move.
Sept 28 2000 [M] The U.S. Army conducts two
tests of the Ground Based Radar-Prototype (GBR-P) at the South Pacific Kwajalein
Missile Range. In the first test, two Minuteman-3 missiles are fired from
Vandenberg Air Force Base. The missiles release 20 different-shaped objects
into space to test the ability of a prototype radar on Kwajalein to find real
warheads in a missile attack. The second flight tests electronic components
that will be incorporated into the future NMD
system.
Oct 3 2000 [N] Russia and India reach an agreement
for cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Under this agreement,
Russia would reportedly supply 58 metric tons of LEU
for India's Tarapur atomic power station, which would violate Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG)
guidelines as India does not accept full-scope
IAEA
safeguards.
Oct 19 2000 [N] In arms control talks between
the United States and Russia, Russia repeats its proposal for deep cuts in
both countries nuclear arsenals. A Russian Foreign Ministry statement says
it supports a reduction in U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to
1,500 or below on each side under a START III treaty. Russia warns that the
proposed reductions depend on whether the United States abrogates the ABM
Treaty by deploying an NMD
system.
Oct 23-24 2000 [M] U.S. Secretary of State Madeline
Albright visits North Korea and holds talks with Kim Jong Il, during which
the sides reportedly make progress towards persuading North Korea to restrain
missile development and testing, as well as missile exports.
Oct 30 2000 [M] French President Chirac states
the European Union and Russia have an identical viewpoint on the ABM
Treaty and condemned any potential revision of the treaty.
Oct 30 2000 [N] Leading Indian nuclear scientists
argue that India needs to conduct further nuclear testing because the series
of nuclear tests conducted in 1998 were not completely successful.
Oct 31 2000 [N] General Vladimir Yakovlev, Commander
of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, offers hundreds of decommissioned Russian
ICBMs for use as
space launch vehicles. General Yakovlev says he plans to sell decommissioned
missiles to raise money for the Russian armed forces. The proceeds could reach
up to 20 billion rubles ($722 million), which is equivalent to about one-tenth
of Russia's 2001 defense budget.
Nov 1 2000 [M] Russia successfully test-fires
a single-warhead SS-19 ICBM
at the Baykonur Cosmodrome. The test allows Russia to extend the service life
of the missile by one year.
Nov 1 2000 [N] Belarus withdraws its draft resolution
on a Central and Eastern European Nuclear-Weapon-Free
Zone, noting the lack of consensus. The draft Resolution L46/Rev.1, "Regional
Disarmament and Non-Proliferation," was opposed particularly by the new NATO
states and states aspiring for NATO or EU membership.
Nov 3 2000 [N] The Russian Foreign Ministry
reports that it successfully completed a series of sub-critical
nuclear tests during the last week of October 2000 and that radiation
levels were normal in the testing area. The Russian government has stated
that sub-critical tests are necessary to ensure the safety of the country's
nuclear arsenal and theoretically are not accompanied by radioactive emissions.
Nov 13 2000 [M] In an official statement, Russian
President Vladimir Putin sets out alternatives to the revision of the ABM
Treaty, including ways to improve the political and legal mechanisms of
missile nonproliferation, development of a new code of conduct in this field,
creation of a Global System of Missile and Missile Technology Control, cooperation
in the sphere of TMD,
and use of the Moscow Center on Missile Launch Data Exchange.
Nov 13 2000 [M, N] Russian Strategic Rocket
Forces Commander General Yakovlev proposes the creation of an "ABM index"
to be used in future negotiations on nuclear reductions if the United States
insists on abrogating the ABM Treaty.
The "ABM index" implies a constant aggregate index of both strategic offensive
and defensive weapons and a link between them. Therefore, if a country sought
to increase its defensive weapons, it would have to decrease its offensive
weapons. Yakovlev also called for the re-MIRVing
of ICBMs, which is
prohibited by START II. Following
this statement, Russian Defense Minister denied that this was an official
position.
Nov 16 2000 [N] The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian
Parliament) ratifies
the CTBT.
Nov 17 2000 [N] The U.S. Department of Energy
announces the completion of a project to consolidate and secure approximately
10 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear material at the Novosibirsk Chemical
Concentrates Plant in Siberia, Russia. The materials were moved from three
separate storage locations to a new central storage facility equipped with
comprehensive nuclear material security and accounting systems.
Nov 20 2000 [N] The UN General Assembly adopts
the New Agenda Resolution (Resolution 55/33C), which underlines "the fundamental
significance of the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to
accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear
disarmament, to which all States parties to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty are committed under Article VI of the Treaty."
The vote is 154 to three, with eight abstentions.
Nov 20 2000 [N] The Russian Ministry of Atomic
Energy (Minatom) opens the Strela Open Computing Center in Snezhinsk, Russia.
The Center will provide commercial research opportunities to former nuclear
weapons specialists in computer software programming and modeling and computer-assisted
engineering and design. The Strela Center was established under the Department
of Energy's Nuclear Cities Initiative, a U.S.-Russian cooperative program
designed to accelerate Russia's planned consolidation of its nuclear weapons
complex, while also lowering the risk that displaced Russian nuclear weapons
specialists might sell their know-how to countries of proliferation concern
or terrorists.
Nov 30 2000 [N] Reports allege that the United
States and North Korea were secretly negotiating modifications to the 1994
Agreed Framework. The possible modifications include developing cheaper
and easier-to-build coal-based power plants and KEDO
building only one light-water reactor, while diverting the rest of the project's
funds for other North Korean infrastructure projects.
Dec 1 2000 [N] The U.S. Department of Defense
releases a "Strategy Report for Europe and NATO"
that outlines the U.S. vision of NATO's role in deploying an NMD
system. The report claims that NMD "would reinforce the credibility of U.S.
security commitments and the credibility of NATO as a whole."
Dec 5 2000 [N] The NATO
nuclear planning group states that little if anything of substance will come out of the upcoming nuclear policy review and
that there would be no changes to nuclear planning or deployments.
Dec 14 2000 [N] The United States conducts its
fifth sub-critical
nuclear test since January 2000 at the Nevada Test Site.
Dec 16 2000 [N, M] The United States and Russia
sign a Memorandum of Understanding on Missile Launch Notifications. The agreement
will facilitate the provision on early warning information to the Joint Data
Exchange Center in Moscow, and is intended to reduce the possibility of nuclear
crises developing from false warnings of missile attacks. Under the agreement,
Washington and Moscow are required to notify each other of missile and space
launches, but it allows some exceptions for national security concerns.
Dec 30 2000 [N, M] Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says his office seeks serious talks with the new U.S. administration on all complex disarmament problems, including preservation of the ABM Treaty.
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