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).
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