South Korean President Opens Door for North Korea to Attend Next Nuclear Security Summit

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

Stories we're following today - Tuesday, May 10, 2011:

SKorean President Offers to Host Kim Jong Il at Summit If He Pledges End to Nuclear Weapons – The Associated Press [link]

• South Korea’s president said Monday that he is prepared to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to an international nuclear security summit in Seoul next year — if Pyongyang first says that it will give up nuclear weapons.
• The summit in March is a follow-up to a gathering hosted by President Barack Obama last year in the U.S., which sought to win commitments to secure nuclear material.
• Five nations — China, the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Russia — had been negotiating since 2003 to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and concessions. Pyongyang pulled out of the talks about two years ago.

START Debate Hasn't Stopped - Charles Hoskinson in Politico [link]

• The Senate ratified the [New START] treaty in December with the help of GOP votes earned through a deal brokered by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the Republican whip, in which President Barack Obama pledged $84 billion to modernize the nation’s nuclear arsenal over the next 10 years.
• Now Kyl and Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio, Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, want to ensure Obama keeps his part of the bargain by writing it into law.
• Kyl – who in the end voted against ratification — noted that Obama has kept his word for fiscal 2012, requesting $7.6 billion for nuclear modernization. “That’s a good start,” he said.

Safety Reviewers Raise Questions About Construction of New Nuclear Fuel Plant – The Alaska Dispatch [link]

• In the late 1990s, U.S. policymakers approved a plan to turn plutonium from nuclear weapons into fuel for commercial reactors. The first-of-its kind plant, now being built in South Carolina, was intended to reduce the Cold War stockpile and the threat of nuclear material theft while supplying the country’s energy needs.
• More than a decade later, the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant is running into mounting troubles, including long delays, soaring costs and the lack of utilities committed to use the new fuel in their reactors.
• Two of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety reviewers for the project say the NRC has taken shortcuts on safety to avoid delaying the construction. Work on the facility was allowed to begin, they say, before some of the most essential questions were fully answered. 

Mohamed ElBaradei’s ‘The Age of Deception,’ On Nuclear Diplomacy – George Perkovich in The Washington Post [link]

• Mohamed ElBaradei fought the Bush administration over the war in Iraq, blocked it from attacking Iran, and for his efforts received harassment from American hardliners and, eventually, the Nobel Peace Prize.
• “The Age of Deception” is more than a campaign biography: Written before the recent Egyptian upheaval, it reaches far beyond the politics of Cairo. The struggles ElBaradei waged in Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Libya to shape the international management of nuclear technology represent a central dynamic of the 21st century.
• A fascinating mix of emotions and calculations seems to animate his analysis. Anyone wishing to glimpse some of the central tensions in 21st-century international diplomacy should read “The Age of Deception.”

Iran’s Ahmadinejad Promises Response to EU Over Possibility of More Talks on Nuclear Program – The Associated Press [link]

• Iran’s president says his country is open to talks with world powers about its nuclear program and will respond soon to the EU Union about the possibility of more dialogue.
• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visiting Istanbul for a U.N. conference, said Monday that the willingness of European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to return to negotiations is a sign that dialogue had not failed.
• A round of talks in Istanbul in January collapsed after Iran said it would not freeze uranium enrichment.
  

EVENT: Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Hearing on the Proliferation Prevention Programs at the Energy and Defense Departments

• May 10, 3:45 p.m.
• Anne Herrington, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration; Kenneth Myers III, Director, Defense Threat Reduction Agency; and Kenneth Handelman, Acting Assistant Defense Secretary for Global Strategic Affairs.
• 232A Russell Senate Office Building, Washington
• Video webcast on the committee website and audio webcast on CapitolHearings.org.
• Note: A closed hearing at 2:30 p.m. precedes the open hearing. The starting time for the open hearing is an estimate.