Unofficial U.S. Talks With North Korea Leaves Diplomats Positive

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

Stories we're following today - Thursday, March 31, 2011:

North Koreans Upbeat After Talks in Germany With Former US Officials on Nuclear Issues - The Associated Press [link]

• North Korean officials sounded upbeat Wednesday after three days of talks in Germany with former U.S. officials on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and disputes between the two nations. The six-person North Korean contingent was led by Ri Gun, the director general of the North American affairs bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and his deputy Choe Son Hui.
• Prior to flying home, Ri told reporters the meetings had been “honest and sincere exchanges” and that they had “agreed to achieve our common goal through communication...Both North Korea and the United States were able to exchange our opinions unofficially,” he told reporters. “We need to resolve our concerns through dialogue and negotiation.”
• In Germany, the two sides met at a secluded castle from Sunday through Tuesday for the talks behind closed doors, said Charles King Mallory, executive director of the Aspen Institute think tank, which organized the gathering.  The American delegation was led by Tom Pickering, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department. There was no official U.S. government involvement.
• In addition to the denuclearization issue, the two sides talked about the normalization of U.S.-North Korean relations, conventional disarmament, economic cooperation and economic assistance to North Korea, and the possibility of concluding a peace treaty that would finally settle the Korean War, Mallory said.

Kyl Should Reconsider Opposition to Nuclear Test Ban - Charles D. Ferguson and Stephen Herzog for The Hill's "Congress Blog" [link]

• Much has changed since the Senate rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1999. But Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) still opposes a ban on testing. On Tuesday, Kyl went so far as to tell an audience at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, “Today there is even less reason to support the CTBT than 11 years ago when it was roundly defeated.”  However, Kyl’s backing arguments fell flat. A careful look at the test ban shows that ratification is clearly in U.S. national security interests now more than ever before.
• Kyl first cited complications in detecting North Korea’s 2009 nuclear test as a reason to doubt the ban’s verification regime. It’s true that no radioactive gases and particles were detected in the atmosphere like they were after the North’s 2006 test, as Pyongyang may have used a hardened and deeply buried testing site to prevent such discharge. But the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization reported that 39 of its seismic monitoring stations quickly detected the explosion. Scientists in Japan, Russia, South Korea, the United States, and elsewhere also reported unusual activity consistent with an underground nuclear test.
• Next, Kyl argued that these alleged verification difficulties would make it impossible to detect cheating. He suggested that this was a threat because Russia might be carrying out low-yield tests in contravention of its testing moratorium. But he did not provide any evidence to support this claim.  And verification has improved to the point that meaningful cheating can’t occur. During the 1999 ratification debates, only 30 percent of the 321 stations that make up the CTBT monitoring system were operational. More than 80 percent are up and running today.
• Despite Senator Kyl’s attempts to prove otherwise, the national security value of the test ban is clear. The United States has conducted 1,054 nuclear tests...With this data advantage, and constantly improving supercomputer simulations and other elements of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which the JASON scientific panel has expressed high confidence in, the test ban presents an opportunity for unparalleled U.S. nuclear superiority.
• CTBT ratification will prevent potential enemies and rivals of the United States from developing more accurate, lethal, and deliverable weapons. Iran and North Korea will not be able to build small nuclear warheads for placement on ballistic missiles without testing. China will face great difficulty deploying multiple warheads on missiles.

Anti-terror Programs Worth the Cost to Avoid Loose Nukes - Norman Seip for The Star Ledger [link]

• As the Arab world approaches a significant turning point in its history, on a more global scale, we are at a critical crossroads. One path leads toward a world in which the threat of nuclear terror increases dangerously. The other path leads toward a safer tomorrow, secured by actively stopping the proliferation of dangerous nuclear materials.  In this second scenario, New Jersey’s elected leaders can play an important deciding role. For weeks now, our representatives in Washington have been debating House Republicans’ shortsighted FY 2011 budget.
• Slashing funding for programs that keep nuclear materials under control is the ultimate example of being penny wise and pound foolish. Republicans want to cut crucial programs — which prevent dangerous nuclear materials from falling into the hands of rogue states and terrorists — by 22 percent, more than $600 million. There are two simple reasons to support these nonproliferation programs — they have a proven track record of working and they help keep Americans safe.
• Let’s look at the facts. Since 2009, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative has secured enough vulnerable material in unstable locations around the globe to make 120 nuclear weapons. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has deactivated more than 7,500 nuclear warheads. It’s hard to imagine an investment that pays bigger dividends when it comes to improving our national security. 
• And that’s why it’s critical that Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, and Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11th Dist.) reject proposed cuts to anti-terror nonproliferation programs. The programs threatened by these cuts have been the unsung heroes in the broader battle to prevent terror; their silent effectiveness should not be taken for granted. To tackle the security challenges of tomorrow, nonproliferation funding needs to be strengthened today.

What NATO Countries Think About Tactical Nukes - Hans M. Kristensen for FAS Strategic Security Blog [link]

• Two researchers from the Dutch peace group IKV Pax Christi have published a unique study that for the first time provides the public with an overview of what individual NATO governments think about non-strategic nuclear weapons and the U.S. deployment of nuclear bombs in Europe.
• Their findings are as surprising as they are new: 14, or half of all NATO member states, actively support the end of the deployment in Europe; 10 more say they will not block a consensus decision to that end; and only three members say they oppose ending the deployment.
• Anyone familiar with the debate will know that while there are many claims about what NATO governments think about the need for U.S. weapons in Europe, the documentation has been scarce – to say the least. Warnings against changing status quo are frequent and just yesterday a senior NATO official told me that, “no one in NATO supports withdrawal.”
• The report, in contrast, finds – based on “interviews with every national delegation to NATO as well as NATO Headquarters Staff” – that there is overwhelming support in NATO for withdrawal.

U.S. Presses Germany to Block Indian Payments to Iran for Oil - Jack Ewing for The New York Times [link]

• Despite public embarrassment and pressure from the United States, German officials appear to be at a loss for ways to prevent a bank in Germany from being used by India to pay for Iranian oil, money that U.S. officials say could help finance Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
• German officials said they had no legal basis to block the payments, made by India to the Hamburg-based Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank, or E.I.H. The money flows through the German central bank, the Bundesbank, as part of the international payments system.
• The payments have apparently been going on for a few weeks, but attracted public attention in Germany only this week, after a report in a leading German business newspaper, Handelsblatt.
• The U.S. authorities have been pressing Germany to shut down the conduit, while the German authorities say they cannot do so without strong evidence that E.I.H. has violated U.N. sanctions against supplying the Iranian weapons program...The bank has called the charges “politically driven” and “without substance.”