A pending nuclear trade agreement between the United States and the United Arab Emirates might encourage the spread of nuclear weapons despite the deal's various nonproliferation provisions, a well known nuclear expert wrote in the Washington Times today (see GSN, July 17).
The pact signed during the Bush administration would grant the Gulf nation access to U.S. civilian nuclear materials and technology in exchange for its pledge not to produce its own reactor fuel or weapon-usable nuclear material. To annul the agreement, Congress must pass rejection legislation within 90 days of receiving the deal from the Obama administration.
The accord's terms would allow Washington to forfeit the deal if the United Arab Emirates attempted to produce its own nuclear fuel, but Abu Dhabi recently signed a deal with France that contains no such provision, wrote Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing can produce fuel for nuclear power plants as well as bomb material.
"Our diplomats need to approach the other key nuclear suppliers about adopting the nonproliferation conditions of the U.S.-United Arab Emirates deal. So far, they haven't," Sokolski wrote.
He also urged the United States to pursue rigorous standards for verifying that the United Arab Emirates is not secretly developing nuclear fuel production capabilities.
"Getting the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern states to allow near-real-time surveillance is not just nice, but critical to verify any minimally credible fuel-making pledge," he wrote.
Abu Dhabi's willingness to enforce economic penalties against Iran could help set an example for other nations in the region, Sokolski argued. Iran has spent years developing sensitive atomic technologies that could produce nuclear-weapon material, but Tehran has maintained that its nuclear activities are strictly aimed at civilian power production (see GSN, July 29).
UAE Prime Minister Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum defended Iran's nuclear work as an "internal matter ... as long as our brothers in Iran continue to reassure the world that the program is peaceful," according to Representative Edward Royce (R-Calif.).
Iran receives most of its imported gasoline through the port city of Dubai, making Abu Dhabi's cooperation critical to enforcing a potential embargo on Iranian gasoline imports, Sokolski said.
Abu Dhabi's willingness to strictly enforce economic penalties against Iran might be a key factor in persuading neighboring states not to pursue their own sensitive nuclear capabilities, he wrote.
"If Iran gets a pass for bending the nuclear rules, its model for developing civilian nuclear energy (and getting within weeks of a bomb) would appeal to its insecure neighbors far more than any no-nuclear fuel-making scheme ever could. Conversely, if its nuclear misbehavior is sanctioned heavily, Tehran would become an example to be avoided" (Henry Sokolski, Washington Times, July 17).