Iran Uranium Swap Deal Reached by Turkey and Brasil

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Monday May 17th, 2010.

Iran Offers to Ship Uranium, Complicating Sanctions Talks - New York Times [link]

• Iran announced an agreement on Monday to ship some of its nuclear fuel to Turkey in a deal that could offer a short-term solution to its ongoing nuclear standoff with the West, or prove to be a tactic aimed at derailing efforts to bring new sanctions against Tehran.
• The deal, negotiated by Turkey and Brazil, calls for Iran to ship 1,200 kilograms, or 2,640 pounds of low enriched uranium to Turkey, where it would be stored. In exchange, after one year, Iran would have the right to receive about 265 pounds of material enriched to 20 percent from Russia and France. The terms mirror a deal with the West last October that had fallen apart when Iran backtracked… But now, the same amount of fuel [from the October proposal] accounts for a smaller proportion of Iran's declared stockpile.
• The agreement could well undermine the Obama administration’s chances of securing international approval for punitive measures against Iran. China and Russia, which have been highly reluctant to impose sanctions on a major trading partner, could use the announcement to end discussions about further measures, representing a fourth round of sanctions.
• “Iran has a history of forging a deal and then going back on it,” said Emad Gad, an expert at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “It lets the situation get really tense and then reaches an agreement. This is a genuine characteristic of the nature of Iranian politics."

Iran nuclear breakthrough? Tehran agrees to fuel swap - Laura Rozen of Politico [link]

• The announcement came as Turkish and Brazilian leaders met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran over the weekend. Turkey and Brazil are both currently members of the United Nations Security Council, where the U.S. has been pursuing a new resolution sanctioning Iran over its nuclear program.
• That signals that Khamenei "is endorsing the deal," the National Iranian American Council's Trita Parsi said, adding it may reduce the bouts of Iranian domestic political infighting that have plagued earlier rounds of negotiations that failed to hold up. "That means this is no longer Ahmadinejad's nuclear deal, this is Khamenei's nuclear deal."
• “This is a potentially important breakthrough and could signal a return to engagement, which everyone wants to see," nuclear proliferation expert Jacqueline Shire told Politico.  "I think it’s important not to make too much of this," Shire added. "The risk of Iran diverting and enriching this low enriched uranium is low under the circumstances, and the objective of getting talks started may trump" the issue.

Senate to open hearings on nuclear treaty - The Bellingham Herald [link]

• Senate deliberations on the President Obama's new arms reduction agreement with Russia begin this week amid concern among the pact's supporters that opponents may seek to delay, if not defeat, the sweeping nuclear weapons pact.
• A lengthy list of former U.S. officials, including pillars of past Republican administrations, have declared they endorse it. While Republicans have not vowed to oppose it, supporters worry the skeptics may seize on details of the voluminous treaty to hold it up.
• One potential opponent, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., questioned the need for the treaty Friday, saying the United States has had no plans to expand its nuclear arsenal and Russia has been dismantling its weapons to save money.
• Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen testify Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker III are to testify the following week, and are expected to signal their support.
• The Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote on the treaty in June, but it is unclear whether the full Senate will act before the August recess. It may be tough to schedule a vote in the fall because of campaign demands.

Anti-nuke film sounds terror warning at Cannes - AFP [link]

• A terrifying study of the nuclear threat was launched at the Cannes film festival on Sunday, in a heavyweight campaign documentary showing how terrorists can get hold of atomic weapons.
• The Cold War may be long over but "Countdown to Zero" -- from the producers behind Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's climate change polemic "An Inconvenient Truth" -- warns that nuclear bombs are easier to come by than ever.
• "This is the most urgent threat we face as human beings," Lucy Walker told a news conference after the screening. It "did not go away with the Cold War as we would love to think."

At UN, deadline aired for abolishing nuke weapons - AP [link]

• The United States, Russia and other nuclear powers would agree to a global conference in 2014 to negotiate a timetable for abolishing nuclear arms, under a draft committee report submitted Friday, halfway through a monthlong conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
• The highly ambitious plan was only an opening bid for the upcoming two weeks of haggling over a final document to be issued by the conference. The eventual text, if there is one, will inevitably be less far-reaching.
• The five nuclear powers recognized under the treaty - also including Britain, France and China - have never endorsed a timetable for nuclear abolition… Four nations that have or are suspected of having atomic arms - Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea - remain outside the treaty.

Fallout shelters for a new generation - L.A. Times [link]

• Underground bunker berths and 'survival condos' purport to offer refuge from nuclear wars, terrorist attacks, giant tsunamis, 2012 — you name it. And they don't come cheap.
• In the desert near Barstow, Robert Vicino is selling berths in the 13,000-square-foot bunker where Kramer plans to hunker down, should it come to that. Vicino's company Vivos, based in Del Mar, charges $5,000 to reserve a space. Kids are half price. Pets are free.
• "This will be the most comfortable nuclear-blast-proof shelter on the planet," he said.
• In the 1960s, as now, the cost puts post-apocalyptic digs out of reach for most Americans, which author Kenneth Rose deems a good thing. Fallout-shelter culture "creates a society of fear, a society obsessed with its own survival," he said. "I don't think that's any way to live a life."