[R-G] US-Russia Nuclear Deal Upstages Iran

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Bad news. -- Yoshie

<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JB09Ak03.html>
Feb 9, 2008
US-Russia nuclear deal upstages Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar

There was a time when Iran might have believed that a multipolar world
order would be just and fair from the point of view of the "suppressed
nations". If that notion wasn't shattered long ago, it was surely was
last Friday when the director of Rosatom, Russia's federal agency for
nuclear power, Sergei Kiriyenko, urgently flew to Washington on a
one-day "working visit".

Russia's nuclear czar was rushing to formalize a deal between Russia
and the United States that Moscow has been keenly seeking for the past
several years. From Washington's point of view, the timing couldn't
have been better. Just as it seemed a biting UN Security Council
sanctions regime against Iran was impossible to achieve, prospects are
brightening.

Tehran is not the only capital that must worry if the two heavyweights
of the nuclear order begin hobnobbing. Many countries - such as India
and South Africa - would also be affected by any redrawing of the
nuclear fuel trade regime. But it is Iran which is in the firing line.

US-Russia nuclear deal
In Washington, Kiriyenko and US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez
signed a trade agreement allowing Russia to incrementally boost
enriched uranium exports to the US. The deal allows the sale of
Russian enriched uranium directly to US utilities.

Previously, such transactions had to be routed through the US
Enrichment Corporation, a special intermediary agent, under a
conversion program known as HEU-ELU. The discriminatory regime kept
Russia out of the highly lucrative enriched uranium trade with the US.
The HEU-LEU, popularly called the "Megatons to Megawatts agreement",
dates to 1993 and stipulates that Russia should convert 500 tonnes of
high-enriched uranium or HEU, which is equivalent to approximately
20,000 nuclear warheads, out of its dismantled Soviet-era nuclear
weapon stockpile into low-enriched uranium, or LEU, before converting
it into nuclear fuel for use in the US.

The Washington deal means a lot to Russia - commercially, politically
and strategically. Kiriyenko admitted it is worth US$5-6 billion in
commercial terms in the coming five-year period alone. By 2014, one in
five American nuclear plants will be running on Russian uranium. The
access to the US market enables Russia to fully utilize its uranium
enrichment capacity, which stands at 40% of the world total.

The Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted that Washington has
signaled that "it is interested in expanding cooperation with Moscow
in civil nuclear power". According to the US Nuclear Energy Institute,
the American market will have a uranium shortage beginning in 2011 so
it makes sense for the US to liberalize its market for Russian
uranium. According to Rosatom, Russia has 870,000 tonnes of natural
uranium, the world's largest reserves after Australia and Kazakhstan.

Therefore, through Friday's deal, Washington offers a bonanza to
Moscow by jettisoning the prohibitive and discriminatory 112% customs
duty that has so far kept Russian low-enriched uranium off the US
market. The US ban also covered any fuel supply or reprocessing of
waste fuel by Russia for US-made nuclear reactors in third countries
such as Taiwan or China.

But US-Russia trade is never based on commercial considerations alone;
it is highly politicized. In the case of nuclear fuel, it is even more
so. Also, nuclear fuel trade impacts the nuclear non-proliferation
regime. Russia is planning an international uranium enrichment center
in Angarsk, eastern Siberia, which will supply enriched uranium to
third countries planning to develop global nuclear energy. Kiriyenko
said at the 51st International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conference
in Vienna last September that Russia envisions the Angarsk facility,
which will be under IAEA control, as "a step towards establishing the
next generation nuclear energy infrastructure".

The facility will also be responsible for the disposal of waste fuel.
As Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin pointed out in October, the
Angarsk center will be "able to play an important role" in nuclear
non-proliferation by "ensuring access to peaceful nuclear energy for
all countries complying with their obligations in that realm [Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty]".

Russia had originally mooted the international center as a
non-proliferation initiative that could also provide a compromise
formula for the Iran nuclear issue. The Russian proposal was first
made public two years ago by President Vladimir Putin, who said that
the international centers would give countries transparent access to
civilian nuclear technology without provoking international fears that
enriched uranium could be used for covert weapons programs.

Last Friday's deal underscores US support of the Russian move to
create an international cartel for nuclear fuel that strengthens the
non-proliferation regime. But the idea of international centers is not
as democratic as it sounds. Moscow was recently dismissive of an idea
that Angarsk-like facilities could be replicated in Arab countries.
Kiriyenko asserted, "We believe there should be a number of such
centers, but clearly such centers should be located in countries in
full possession of [uranium] enrichment technology, so that the
technology does not proliferate around the world."

Clearly, a cartel is in the making in the highly lucrative nuclear
fuel trade. And Washington and Moscow are on the same page. Russian
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has been quoted as admitting that
any signatory to the NPT had a right to buy enriched nuclear fuel from
the international centers, "but this is only in theory. For a variety
of reasons, a country may be denied access to uranium".

Russian nuclear experts have acknowledged that the US implicitly
associated last Friday's deal in Washington with Russia ceasing
nuclear operations in Iran, where it is engaged in the construction of
a nuclear power plant in Bushehr. In retrospect, the manifest haste
with which Russia fulfilled - in eight installments during the
six-week period since December 16 - its obligations for supplying
low-enriched nuclear fuel totaling 82 tonnes for the Bushehr plant
falls into perspective. Russia completed on January 28 - barely four
days ahead of last Friday's deal in Washington - its eighth and final
delivery of fuel for Bushehr.

US 'liberates' Russia from Iran ties Equally, US President George W
Bush took a surprisingly tolerant attitude toward Russian fuel
supplies for Bushehr, although Israel and several European capitals
took serious exception to Moscow's move as being a direct threat to
regional security. To quote a Russian commentator, "Bush all but
repeated Vladimir Putin's words to the effect that now that Russia is
supplying Iran with nuclear fuel, it will not have to deal with
nuclear enrichment itself."

It was a brilliant piece of pragmatism on Bush's part. In essence, he
"liberated" Moscow from the "tyranny" of nuclear cooperation with
Tehran. But he would now expect Moscow - in the downstream of the
Washington deal on Friday - to re-calibrate its stance on the need to
pressure Tehran through sanctions.

Following the meeting of the "Five+One" in Berlin on January 22,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov outlined that any new
resolution on Iran would have certain features:

# "Any actions in the Security Council should be aimed at supporting
the IAEA" by taking into account the "progress achieved in the work of
the IAEA" and expressing support for IAEA's continued effort to close
the questions that still remain clarified".
# Any new measures "ought to be commensurate with the real situation",
that is, the Security Council must take into account Iran's readiness
to cooperate with the IAEA.
# Door for talks must remain open so long as "Iran accepts the terms
set forth by the IAEA".
# "Talks will be dedicated not only to dealing with nuclear issues and
not only to ensuring in practice the lawful rights of Iran to develop
peaceful nuclear energy, but also to expanding economic cooperation
with Iran in the nuclear field and to collaborating with Iran on
regional problems, on security problems of this region".
# New resolution will be "principally in the form of calls on all
countries to show vigilance" in developing their relations with Iran
in the nuclear field.

Lavrov drew satisfaction that "in the end, we have received a text
that differs from the initial demands of our Western partners, which
actually went along the path of punishing Iran rather supporting the
IAEA's efforts".

>From available details, the draft UN Security Council resolution
cleared at Berlin lacked any cutting edge. It contained the following
elements:

# Travel ban on Iranians "engaged in, directly associated with or
providing support for Iran's proliferation of sensitive nuclear
activities or for the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems".
# Stipulation that the assets freeze detailed in the previous
resolution will now include specified persons and entities.
# Advisory that all countries should "exercise vigilance" over
activities of their financial institutions with Iranian banks,
especially Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.

But Washington is intent on playing the "sanction card" and Western
powers ultimately will go along with American wishes. China remains
equivocal. Beijing "calls on all parties to step up diplomatic efforts
to be creative and seek new approaches to break the deadlock; and
achieve a comprehensive solution to the Iran question", to quote the
foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing. Now, after Friday's deal in
Washington, where does Russia stand?

That is why Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak's statement
posted on the Foreign Ministry website in Moscow on Tuesday becomes
intriguing. He says Russia calls on Iran to freeze uranium enrichment
until "complicated points have been worked out" by the IAEA. There is
a subtle shift in emphasis here. So far, Moscow's accent was on the
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's report to the Security Council in the
third week of February.

The general expectation so far has been that ElBaradei would clarify
the outstanding questions about Iran's past nuclear activities.
ElBaradei said in an interview with the Kuwait-based daily al-Rai,
"Iran has made some breakthrough in [resolving] its nuclear program".
But Kislyak says: "I believe this [Iran freezing enrichment] is
entirely achievable if the appropriate political decisions are taken.
International concerns can be easily allayed [by Tehran] to create
more favorable conditions for Iran's extensive cooperation with other
countries".

He also plays down Iran's cooperation with the IAEA by saying,
"Frankly speaking, our Iranian colleagues could have started this work
long ago and not wasted so many years on confrontation, first with the
IAEA board of governors, and then with the UN Security Council."

Kislyak warns that the new sanctions resolution "contains serious
signals for Iran and envisions decisions to expand sanctions earlier
adopted by the Security Council". A leading Russian commentator
promptly added his voice to Kislayk's by warning the new resolution
"may prove to be quite serious" and that Moscow "did not notice [this]
at first glance".

Significantly, he adds, "The adoption of the new resolution was
continuously delayed because of Russia and China. During this time,
[Iranian President Mahmud] Ahmadinejad's team travelled a long way in
toughening its stance. As a result, international experts, including
Iranian, are in agreement that the Iranian nuclear program had
approached a point beyond which it would inevitably result in the
development of nuclear weapons. Against this backdrop, mild sanctions
in the Security Council were almost encouraging Iran to go ahead."

>From the Russian doublespeak, it seems that in addition to the
provisions in the draft agreed at Berlin on January 22, no matter what
the IAEA chief might come up with, the upcoming resolution might
insist that Iran should stop uranium enrichment as a condition for
resumption of talks. Tehran will be certain to reject such a
pre-condition.

But Iran will be left to realize how a multipolar world still holds no
guarantee of an end to the wheeling and dealing between big powers. In
the post-Soviet international system, George Orwell's Animal Farm
still exists, and some are always more equal than the others.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador
to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>