VIENNA, Sept 26: The United States said on Monday it would provide nuclear reactor fuel to countries that refrain from enriching uranium in an effort to prevent the process from being used to make atomic weapons.
Enrichment purifies uranium to levels at which it is useable in power plants or, if enriched further, in atomic bombs.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei has suggested setting up an independent, international system to provide states with a guaranteed fuel supply if they abandoned enrichment.
“We are working with major suppliers and the IAEA on a back-up supply mechanism for states that forgo investment in indigenous enrichment or (plutonium) reprocessing capability,” US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement issued at the annual IAEA General Conference.
“The United States Department of Energy will reserve up to 17 metric tons of highly enriched uranium for an IAEA verifiable assured fuel supply arrangement,” he said.
It was unclear how or whether this would fit into any future plan for a fuel supply as envisioned by Mr ElBaradei, who was re-elected to a third four-year term as IAEA chief on Monday.
Mr ElBaradei, in a written statement to the IAEA’s 139 members, said that operations related to uranium enrichment and plutonium separation are ‘a vulnerability’ in the non-proliferation regime.
North Korea and Iran are recent examples. North Korea withdrew from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and expelled UN inspectors on Dec 31, 2002, after which it announced that it had built nuclear weapons.
Washington accuses Tehran of using its nuclear programme as a cover for an atomic weapons programme and wants Iran to give up uranium enrichment. It believes Tehran would use this for a bomb. Iran says it only wants to generate electricity.
The cornerstone of Mr ElBaradei’s idea is the notion that the supply must be guaranteed and free from political influence.
“How do you convince a country to give up enrichment if the fuel supply isn’t guaranteed?” a Western diplomat close to the IAEA said.
The diplomat said Mr ElBaradei hoped to receive a clearer mandate on the issue from this week’s meeting of the IAEA. The US offer would be the first step towards a ‘neutral bank’ of reactor fuel, a senior official from the US Department of Energy said.
“The United States felt it was important to show leadership and begin the process of converting some of the discussions ... into actual implementation,” the official said.
The fuel would be enough for 10 reactor cores, he said, adding that Washington estimated it would be ready by 2009. —Reuters
