By UANI, Special for USDR.
Today, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) urged policymakers to preserve the “Gold Standard” for U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy as negotiations continue with Iran, and to consider how deal-making with Iran could affect previously imposed nuclear fuel-making limits on countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates among others. Such countries by treaty have agreed to forgo enrichment and reprocessing related activities in order to lawfully use nuclear energy.
Said UANI CEO, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace and UANI Advisory Board Member and Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Henry Sokolski:
The recent and ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program in regard to nuclear fuel-making may jeopardize U.S. efforts to prevent the further spread of such dangerous nuclear activities by states other than Iran. For example, under the U.S. nuclear nonproliferation “Gold Standard,” NPT signatories such as South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates have developed peaceful nuclear programs while at the same time foregoing enrichment or reprocessing activities on their own soil.
We urge policymakers in the U.S. and the P5+1 to seriously consider the impact the Geneva interim agreement–and any comprehensive agreement that would allow nuclear fuel-making in Iran–could have on the nuclear non-proliferation efforts of the U.S., its allies and other countries more generally. The Geneva deal contemplates a final agreement to include a “mutually defined enrichment programme.” Iran’s leaders have already claimed that this provision is recognition of Iran’s “right” to enrichment and that in any agreed deal Iran will be permitted to enrich.
Simply put, it will be nearly impossible–politically and diplomatically–to expect allies and other countries to forego nuclear fuel-making activities if a comprehensive agreement with Iran permits either reprocessing or enrichment. This will put the cause of nuclear nonproliferation, particularly in the volatile Middle East, at profound risk.
We urge all participants to the P5+1 negotiations to consider these far reaching concerns. We call on the White House and Congress to redouble their commitment to the Gold Standard.
Countries with a nuclear-civilian-cooperation agreement with the U.S. that currently do not domestically enrich or reprocess include: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Norway, Republic of Korea (ROK), South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.
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