A Realistic and Effective Policy on Sensitive Nuclear Activities

The U.S. government will very soon set a new policy course on the nonproliferation terms it wants to incorporate into new bilateral peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements with foreign countries. It is likely that the administration will instruct diplomats to persuade the foreign countries with which it intends to cooperate in the future to refrain from engaging in enrichment of uranium or the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (ENR) on their territories if they do not already possess such capabilities. 

 

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, gave an hour-long PowerPoint presentation of the proposals, entitled "Closing an unnecessary crisis: Opening new horizons", to senior diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China at the Palace of Nations in Geneva.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in a hint to Iran that Israel had learned from its lessons in the 1973 Yom Kippur War "not to underestimate the enemy, not to ignore the dangers and not to give up on preemptive strikes."

 

South Korea is pushing hard to get more nuclear-power contracts abroad, but it is becoming much less enthusiastic about building reactors at home following scandals over nuclear safety checks.

 

Britain today agreed to expand cooperation with China on civil nuclear energy, macroeconomic matters, trade and investment and announced moves aimed at making London the main centre for Chinese financial business overseas. 

 

The National Nuclear Security Administration is backing away from statements it made earlier this month indicating that an assessment of its options for disposing surplus weapons-grade plutonium would not be complete until the spring of 2014.