North Korea Warns of ‘Undesired Consequences’ If No Change in U.S. Nuclear Stance
Hyonhee Shin | Reuters
North Korea’s vice foreign minister said on Tuesday the United States will face “undesired consequences” if it fails to present a new position in denuclearization talks by the end of the year, state media reported. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set a year-end deadline for the United States to show more flexibility after his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump failed to produce a deal to end Pyongyang’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. But Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have brushed aside the deadline, calling for Kim to take action on his pledge to denuclearize after years of pursuing nuclear and rocket programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui singled out a Pompeo interview last week with CBS in which he said the United States may have to “change paths” if the negotiations break down.
Abe Ready to Meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un ‘Unconditionally’ to ‘Break the Shell of Mutual Distrust’
Japan Times
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has offered to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “unconditionally” in a bid to restore diplomatic ties between the two foes, a daily newspaper reported Thursday. In an interview with the Sankei Shimbun on Wednesday, Abe said: “I want to meet Chairman Kim Jong Un unconditionally and talk with him frankly with an open mind.” Abe, seen as a foreign policy hawk, has recently softened his rhetoric toward Pyongyang, calling for a summit with Kim to resolve an emotional row over past kidnappings of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents. “It is more than important for our country to be proactive in tackling the issue,” Abe also said in the interview.
Ellen Tauscher, Former House Democrat and Arms Negotiator Under Obama, Dies at 67
Harrison Smith | Washington Post
Ellen Tauscher, a moderate California Democrat who helped blaze a trail for women in finance and was elected to seven terms in the U.S. House, then resigned in 2009 to join the State Department as a senior arms-control adviser to President Barack Obama, died April 29 at a hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. She was 67.
French Bill Delays Nuclear Reduction by 10 Years
World Nuclear News
The 2012 election pledge by former French president Francois Hollande aimed to limit nuclear's share of French generation to 50% by 2025, and to close Fessenheim - the country's oldest plant - by the end of his five-year term, which ended in May 2017. In June 2014, following a national energy debate, his government announced the country's nuclear generating capacity would be capped at the current level of 63.2 GWe. It would also be limited to 50% of France's total output by 2025. The French Energy Transition for Green Growth Law was adopted in August 2015. When he was elected, President Emmanuel Macron promised to respect Hollande's target. However, he has said French reductions in nuclear power must be at a pace which allows the country to retain energy sovereignty.
The Nuclear Dimensions of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War
Joshua Pollack and Avner Cohen | Nonproliferation Review
Public understanding of the nuclear dimensions of the June 1967 Middle East War has progressed considerably since the late 1990s. Then, Israeli researchers showed that the vulnerability of Israel’s nuclear facility at Dimona to Egyptian air power played a significant role in the thinking of Israel’s military and political leaders during the crisis of May and early June. This issue’s special section offers significant new advances in addressing unresolved questions about the role of Israel’s nuclear program during these events. Did Egypt’s leaders actually have designs on Dimona, and how did their thinking about Dimona change over the course of the crisis? How close was Israel to possessing a usable nuclear device on the war’s eve? In what manner and circumstances might Israel have detonated its nuclear device? Did the US government know or suspect that Israel had an underground reprocessing plant adjacent to the Dimona reactor, enabling it to separate plutonium and build nuclear devices?
A U.S.-Russia-China Arms Treaty? Extend New START First
Jon Wolfsthal | Defense One
New reports indicate that President Trump has ordered his administration to begin thinking about how to negotiate a new multilateral nuclear arms control agreement with Russia and China. There are good reasons to want to constrain the nuclear activities of these countries, but any new effort to do so should not stand in the way of doing the easy and obvious thing needed to protect American security: extend the 2010 New START Treaty between Russia and the United States. There is ample evidence that John Bolton — national security adviser and noted anti-arms controller — is eager to hold out the lure of a possible new negotiation to include China as a means of undermining the case for a straight and simple extension of New START, which expires in less than two years. And forgive me for doubting, but it is unlikely that the short-handed Trump administration has the personnel and skills required to negotiate a complex, multilateral arms control agreement within the next 18 months. We don’t need a nuclear version of repeal-and-replace.