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VIENNA, June 1: The United States is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to drop its plan to sign an agreement that would severely curtail the United Nations’ ability to monitor any Saudi atomic activity, diplomats said on Wednesday. The ‘small quantities protocol’ is an accord states which say they have little or no nuclear material can sign with the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Diplomats close to the agency say it is a dangerous loophole in the IAEA inspection regime.
“The Americans are putting pressure on the Saudis to drop their plan to sign the small quantities protocol, but it’s unclear if the Saudis will agree,” a European diplomat said.
Saudi Arabia said earlier this month it had formally asked the IAEA to sign the protocol. The IAEA board will discuss the request this month, diplomats said.
Several other Western diplomats on the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors confirmed that Washington was attempting to use its clout with Saudi Arabia to convince it to put its request on hold until the IAEA board made a decision.
If the Saudis do not voluntarily withdraw their request, it will be difficult for the board to turn it down without a formal change in policy regarding the protocol, something that would likely take months or years, diplomats said.
However, the Saudis have said they are prepared to allow the IAEA to conduct additional inspections that go beyond the protocol to allay any fears that Riyadh might be hiding anything, diplomats on the IAEA board said.
EXTRA INSPECTIONS: “The Saudis are prepared to make a statement that they will allow inspections that go beyond the small quantities protocol,” an EU diplomat said, adding that it was unclear how intrusive such additional inspections would be.
Welcome as this might be, it does not solve the underlying problem of the protocol — an obsolete arrangement that dates back to the 1970s, before the discovery of covert nuclear activities in Iraq, North Korea, Iran or Libya, diplomats said.
Saudi Arabia does not have any nuclear reactors and does not plan on developing them. An IAEA spokesman said the agency had begun consultations on possible solutions and would report to the IAEA board this month.
A confidential report the IAEA sent to the states on its board of governors in February said 86 countries had signed this protocol, nearly half the 188 parties to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The report said the protocol curtailed its ability to monitor nuclear activities in a country and verify their declarations were accurate. It recommended asking all protocol states to give it up and not to sign new ones.
The protocol exempts NPT states from having to notify the IAEA of stocks of natural uranium of up to 10 tons, which experts say could be purified into fuel for at least one bomb.
One diplomat said this means that once a country has signed the protocol, UN inspectors virtually relinquish their authority to uncover any secret activities it is carrying out. —Reuters
