Tracking Number: 368635
Title: "Kazakh Nuclear Material Gets Safe Storage in US." Kazakhstan will transfer 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to the US to ensure that it is out of reach of
potential terrorists. (941123)
Translated Title: De l'uranium du Kazakhstan mis en securite aux Etats-Unis.; Ponen a resguardo en EU material nuclear de Kazajstan. (941123)
Author: PORTH, JACQUELYN S (USIA
STAFF WRITER)
Date: 19941123
Text:
KAZAKH NUCLEAR MATERIAL GETS SAFE STORAGE IN U.S.
(Removed from reach of terrorists, black-marketeers) (950)
By Jacquelyn S. Porth
USIA Security Affairs Correspondent
Washington -- The transfer of 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU)
from Kazakhstan to the United States puts that dangerous cache of
weapons-grade nuclear material "forever out of the reach of potential
black-marketeers, terrorists or new nuclear regimes," says U.S. Defense
Secretary Perry.
Perry and two other Clinton cabinet officers -- Secretary of State Christopher and Secretary of Energy O'Leary -- paid tribute to the government of Kazakhstan November 23 for approaching the United States for help to ensure that the HEU -- capable of producing several dozen nuclear devices, depending on the skill of the developer and the size of the weapons -- would not become what Perry called "a proliferation nightmare."
Speaking at a joint Pentagon news conference, Christopher described the Kazakhstan-U.S. transfer, completed the same day, as a "landmark event" in the Clinton administration's non-proliferation strategy. "The action we recognize today is an example of our determination to ensure that the Soviet nuclear legacy does not become a source of instability in the post-Cold War world," he declared.
With Kazakhstan's ambassador to the United States Tuleuti Suleymenov in attendance, Perry thanked his government for its wisdom is seeking U.S. assistance in dealing with the uranium, which had been sitting in a warehouse in the Ust-Kamenogorsk region. "We applaud President Nazarbayev and the Kazakhstan government for helping to make the world safer and more secure," he said.
Perry said "this new gesture of cooperation and trust" is an indication of how the U.S.-Kazakhstan relationship has "grown and deepened" in the past year. He pointed to the alacrity with which Kazakhstan agreed to remove nuclear weapons from its territory, its 1994 signature of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the regional security sensitivity demonstrated by its consultations with the Russian government before proceeding on this transfer project with the United States.
Christopher also expressed appreciation to the Russian government for paving the way for the transfer of the material.
At the White House, President Clinton said the nuclear transfer operation "means that one more threat of nuclear terrorism and proliferation has been removed from the world....We are making progress toward making our people more secure."
Kazakhstan, which has been taking steps to implement the full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards required of all NPT signatories, indicated to the United States that it wanted the nuclear material in its possession removed before the IAEA safeguards are to take effect in December.
In return for its cooperation in transferring the material, which both the United States and Kazakhstan considered vulnerable to possible theft, Kazakhstan will receive an undisclosed amount of U.S. financial assistance which is being distributed through the Nunn-Lugar denuclearization program and the State Department's Freedom Support Act.
O'Leary described the technical side of the previously classified transfer project, which operated under the code name "Sapphire."
She said a 31-person American team of volunteers consisting of nuclear technicians, pilots and translators was assembled and sent to Kazakhstan in early October. The team had to establish a facility at the Ulbinsky Metallurgical Factory to process the HEU -- which was originally produced for military reactors for former Soviet naval propulsion systems -- into a form which could be safely placed into special stainless steel containers for safe air shipment to the United States. Team members had to fly in all of the special equipment needed for the operation, including forklifts and airport de-icers as well as their own food and fuel.
The nuclear material was flown in two giant U.S. Air Force C-5 transport aircraft from Kazakhstan to Dover Air Base in Delaware, where it was unloaded and transferred to a truck convoy which delivered it to the Energy Department's Oak Ridge facility in Tennessee for secure storage.
Perry described the sensitive mission -- carried out through the cooperation of the State, Defense and Energy Departments -- as an example of "defense by other means." Pentagon officials believe all Kazakh HEU left over after the dissolution of the Soviet Union has now been removed from Kazakhstan.
Although he said security concerns were driving the United States and Kazakhstan to undertake this project, he also stressed that Kazakh officials "were guarding this material properly." But he pointed out that the security task was draining Kazakh resources. He said he did not know of any particular individual or group which may have been trying to target the nuclear material for theft.
A senior administration official said later, however, that "there are people really shopping for this kind of material." Arms control experts are aware, he said, "of efforts in the states of the former Soviet Union, by states outside the former Soviet Union, to acquire this kind of material."
O'Leary emphasized that the newly transferred nuclear material consists of non-irradiated material and is "not nuclear waste." It will be blended down from HEU to low-enriched uranium for use in commercial nuclear reactors, she said.
She also drew attention to the humanitarian assistance which grew out of Project Sapphire. She said the U.S. team visiting Kazakhstan identified two orphanages and a pensioners' home in need of help and quickly collected 1,800 dollars to buy winter clothing and toys.
As a follow-up, they alerted co-workers and families back in the United States to the need for food, clothes and sleeping bags for the infants, youth and elderly. Some 18,000 kilograms of humanitarian aid was delivered last week.
NNNN
File Identification: 11/23/94, POL302; 11/23/94, AEF306; 11/23/94, EPF309; 11/23/94, EUR307; 11/23/94, NEA305; 11/25/94, LEF501; 11/25/94, AFI510; 11/25/94, NAA504; 11/25/94, LSI504
Product Name: Wireless
File
Product Code: WF
Languages: French; Arabic; Spanish
Keywords: URANIUM; KAZAKHSTAN-US RELATIONS; NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION; NUCLEAR SAFETY; SECURITY MEASURES; PERRY, WILLIAM
Thematic Codes: 1AC
Target Areas: AF; EA; EU; NE; AR
PDQ Text Link: 368635; 368891; 368846
USIA Notes: *94112302.POL
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