Obama Signs New START Treaty Ratification Documents

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

Stories we're following today: Thursday February 3, 2011.

Obama Signs New START Treaty Ratification Documents - RTT News [link]

• U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed the final ratification documents of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) reached with Russia, clearing the way for bringing the treaty into force once the two countries exchange the documents this weekend.
• Obama signed the documents at a low key ceremony at his Oval Office in the White House on Wednesday. Though reporters were barred from witnessing the signing of the treaty, photographers were allowed to take snaps of the signing.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the documents last Friday after the two houses of the Russian parliament, the Duma and the Federation Council, ratified the treaty on January 25 and 26 respectively.
• The treaty will now come into force on Saturday when U.S. Secretary State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov exchange the ratification documents in the German city of Munich.
• New START provides stability and predictability between the world's two leading nuclear powers, reducing the number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia to a level not seen since the 1950's, while retaining a safe and effective deterrent.  It will also restore crucial inspection and verification mechanisms that ceased when the original START agreement expired in 2009, allowing U.S. inspectors back inside Russian nuclear weapon silos. And it will help keep nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists or rogue regimes.

United States to Hold Talks on Tactical Nuclear Weapons With Russia - Reuters [link]

• The United States expects to hold talks with Russia on tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) within a year after the New START arms reduction treaty comes into force, President Barack Obama said in a message to the Senate on Wednesday.
• "The United States will seek to initiate, following consultation with NATO Allies but not later than 1 year after the entry into force of the New START Treaty, negotiations with the Russian Federation on an agreement to address the disparity between the non-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons stockpiles of the Russian Federation and of the United States," the message reads.
• When ratifying the New START deal in December, the United States Senate adopted a resolution obligating the government to start bilateral talks on cutting the TNW stockpiles - landmines, artillery shells and short-range missiles. Washington says Moscow has a larger number of these systems.
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said January 29 that it is too early to discuss limiting TNW with the United States because Russia needs to see the way the U.S. fulfills the undertaken commitments.  In his message to senators, Obama officially notified them that he signed the ratification papers and will implement the decisions of legislators that the ratification resolution contains.

IAEA Takes Harder Stand on Syria - Global Security Newswire [link]

• Syria's continued refusal to allow further international access to the site of a suspected nuclear reactor bombed in 2007 could prompt the International Atomic Energy Agency to make public its current take on Syrian compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, possibly paving the way for punitive action at the United Nations, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano warned in a November letter.
• The warning, confirmed by three Western diplomats with knowledge of Amano's letter to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem, marked a shift in strategy in the U.N. nuclear watchdog's bid over more than two years to examine the suspected reactor site and three other areas with possible atomic ties.
• Syria has denied multiple IAEA requests for visits to the Dair Alzour site, where a suspected partially constructed nuclear reactor was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. Inspectors were prohibited from the area after a June 2008 visit turned up traces of anthropogenic natural uranium. Damascus has rejected accusations it had engaged in illicit nuclear activities, though it suspended its cooperation with the U.N. watchdog following the 2008 visit.
• The Vienna-based agency could release an assessment of Syria's nonproliferation treaty compliance as soon as this month, when it is expected to make public a new safeguards report before its 35-nation governing board convenes on March 7.

Iran Could Make a Nuclear Weapon within 1-2 years: IISS - Adrian Croft and Peter Apps for Reuters [link]

• Iran could make a nuclear weapon in as little as one or two years if it wished, an influential think-tank said on Thursday -- but industrial sabotage and the Stuxnet computer worm had probably slowed its progress.
• Evidence showed "beyond reasonable doubt" that Iran was seeking the capability to produce nuclear weapons should its leaders decide to go down that route, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in a report. However, allegations that Iran had carried out prohibited chemical or biological weapons activities "cannot be determined from the available public information and may have been exaggerated," the IISS said in a 128-page report on "Iran's nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities".
• IISS said Iran's nuclear programme looked to have been dented by the Stuxnet computer worm, widely believed to have been built by Western or Israeli experts for the purpose. Iran says the worm infected some computers at its primary nuclear plant but did not affect operations.
• Western and other intelligence agencies have also been involved in a worldwide campaign to slow nuclear smuggling and make it harder for Tehran to acquire essential equipment. Some previous estimates over the last decade had suggested Iran could have a bomb by as soon as late last year.  "I think the world has been pleasantly surprised by the limitations that have been imposed on the program through industrial sabotage and the Iranians' reliance on inefficient methods," Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the IISS non-proliferation and disarmament programme, told Reuters.

NRC Moving Forward With Closing Out Yucca Review - Frederic Frommer for The Associated Press [link]

• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is closing out its work on Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a nuclear waste repository, even as the Obama administration's decision to scrap the project faces challenges on two fronts, the agency's chairman said Wednesday.
• Last year, the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled that the Energy Department didn't have the authority to withdraw its application to build the site. The board said it was up to the NRC to issue a "merit-based" decision.  The Energy Department's decision to abandon Yucca is also facing a court challenge from South Carolina, Washington state, Aiken County, S.C., and three Washington state business owners, which claim the Obama administration overstepped its authority in cutting funding for the project.
• Currently, nuclear waste can either be submerged in spent-fuel pools or in steel and concrete casks for longer onsite storage. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said the commission "continues to believe that when necessary, we will have some type of long-term disposal option for spent fuel. But it's not likely to be necessary for at least 100 years or more."
• Jaczko said the commission has asked its staff to look at storage challenges 200 or 300 years into the future. "We've repeatedly anticipated that a repository would be available," he said. "Clearly, that's not on the horizon now. So we want to look at it more from the perspective of how long can this material be stored safely and securely, and go on as far as we can."