[sacw] SAAN Post (25 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asians Against Nukes Post
25 May 2000

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#1. Ending the n-race
#2. US warns India, Pakistan against further nuclear tests
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#1.

The Hindu
Thursday, May 25, 2000
Ending the n-race

By Zia Mian, M. V. Ramana & Hui Zhang
AFTER THEIR nuclear tests in May 1998, the Governments of India and
Pakistan sought to placate international criticism by announcing
that they did not intend conducting more tests and promising to
control nuclear technology exports. They have also not yet deployed
nuclear weapons. But, India and Pakistan have continued building up
stocks of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons
in a fissile material race with profound economic, environmental and
health consequences for their people. Stopping this race would benefit
both countries. Using newly available commercial satellite images
they could verify a production freeze independently with
considerable confidence.
In December 1999, India's Minister of State for Atomic Energy
announced plans to construct a new plutonium production reactor
comparable to its 100 MW Dhruva plant. The older 40 MW CIRUS reactor
(which produced the plutonium for the 1974 nuclear test) is currently
being refurbished. India's Rattehalli uranium enrichment plant is
likely to be used only to produce fuel for the planned nuclear
submarine, and is of less immediate concern. Pakistan, for its part, has
recently completed its 40 MW reactor at Khushab and continues
operating its older Kahuta uranium enrichment facility.
India and Pakistan would be better off if they stopped the
production of fissile material for weapons purposes. However, the
atmosphere of mistrust and tension between India and Pakistan,
resulting from the May 1998 tests and the subsequent Kargil war, makes
even starting talks a problem. Their limited nuclear weapons
capabilities also put a premium on keeping secret the scale and
operational characteristics of their facilities, severely
restricting if not eliminating possible on-site inspections to
assess compliance with any agreement. Rather than try to resolve these
difficulties straight away, both India and Pakistan could follow the
example of the other nuclear states and unilaterally declare a moratorium.
In parallel, India and Pakistan could call on the nuclear weapon states
(the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France and China) to formalise their
existing moratoria on fissile material production and, along with Israel
(the only other nuclear weapon state), start negotiations on
reducing existing fissile material stockpiles. This initiative
could, in turn, help free up the global Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty
(FMCT) that has been stuck at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
The nuclear weapon states refuse to discuss their stockpiles in that
forum and most non-nuclear weapon states insist that stocks must be
addressed if the FMCT is to have any disarmament value.
By instituting a moratorium, Pakistan and India would do more than
limit the health, environmental and economic consequences of large- scale
fissile material production. Pakistan could prevent the escalation of an
arms race that it can ill-afford, and would certainly lose - by an ever-
increasing margin - if India were to build and operate its planned new
reactor. Indian hardline concerns would be addressed by a Chinese formal
commitment to not resume fissile material production as a response
to U.S. deployment of ballistic missile defence systems. India would
also be able to engage with the other nuclear weapons states to reduce
their nuclear stockpiles, thereby limiting the requirements on the size
of its own prospective arsenal, and shape a disarmament agenda that it
has long been claiming to support.
Unlike the other nuclear weapon states, India and Pakistan lack the
capability to independently assess whether the others (and especially
each other) were keeping their word. The U.S. and its allies, and
Russia, use various forms of high-tech spying, including satellite
imagery to closely monitor each other and everyone else. However,
recent developments in commercial satellite imaging, notably the
IKONOS satellite owned by Space Imaging Inc., make it possible for
anyone to buy pictures showing structures on the ground about one meter in
size.
While less capable than military satellites, commercial images are
now sufficient to detect nuclear facilities and, often, to assess
whether they are operating. For example, analysis of IKONOS pictures
released by the Federation of American Scientists (available on the
internet at www.fas.org) suggests the presence of water vapour emerging
from the large cooling towers used to remove the heat generated by the
operation of Pakistan's 40 MW Khushab reactor. This telltale sign is
the first independent confirmation that Khushab is in fact
operational. Under an agreement to cease fissile material
production, which would require shutting down the Khushab reactor,
evidence of water vapour plumes would be a give-away. Thus, by
independently obtain images of each other's key nuclear facilities
that are very revealing, India and Pakistan can gain confidence in a
declared moratorium. They could, of course, gain even more confidence if
they were to allow for some monitoring within the country.
Similarly, the images of India's CIRUS and Dhruva, the two
reactors that are used to produce weapon-grade plutonium and part of a
larger complex near Mumbai, suggest characteristic patterns forming as
warm water carrying heat from the reactors is discharged into the
ocean and begins to mix with seawater. Infrared images from commercial
satellites such as Landsat 7 and ASTER, launched last April and
December respectively, would enhance the already existing ability to
monitor these cooling water traces. Since discharges from both reactors
flow into the same body of water, it would not be possible to
separately identify which reactor is operating. A fissile
material moratorium would require both to be inoperative, and this could
be verified. The medical and commercial isotope production at Dhruva,
and possibly at Khushab, could be moved to nuclear power reactors in
the respective countries. To build confidence that these power reactors
are not contributing to the nuclear weapons stockpile, they could be put
under international safeguards. At present, both power reactors in
Pakistan, and four of the 12 in India are safeguarded.
The shutdown of Pakistan's Kahuta uranium enrichment centrifuge plant
would be more difficult for India to verify from current satellite
images. One way around this problem would be to look not at the
enrichment plant itself but at the facility that produces the uranium
hexafluoride gas, which is fed into Kahuta's centrifuges. The production
of uranium hexafluoride is an energy intensive, high temperature,
chemical and electrochemical process and may be detectable in thermal
images. Since Pakistan has no use for uranium hexafluoride other
than producing fissile material for nuclear weapons it would be
feasible for its production to stop under a moratorium.
Stopping fissile material production in South Asia, like any other
arms control or disarmament measure, is a question of political
commitment; the technical capability to verify such a commitment is
available. A halt now to fissile material production for weapons in
South Asia, announced unilaterally and independently verifiable by
commercial satellite images, offers an opportunity for Pakistan and
India to avoid the long, dangerous, and expensive race that the U.S.
and the Soviet Union ran for 40 years.
At the same time, their initiative could help push the nuclear weapons
states to deal more urgently with the reduction of the vast stockpiles
of nuclear weapons and fissile material they have accumulated. The
fissile material gap could be closed by going down rather than up.
(The writers are physicists, the first two at the Center for Energy
and Environmental Studies, Princeton University, and the third at the
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University).
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#2.

Yahoo
AsiaThursday, May 25 2:15 PM SGT s
http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/asia/cna/article.html?s=3Dsingapore/=
headli
nes/000525/asia/cna/US_warns_India__Pakistan_against_further_nuclear_tests.h=
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US warns India, Pakistan against further nuclear tests
The United States has warned India and Pakistan against further nuclear
testing, saying it could escalate tensions in Southeast Asia.
It added that there will be serious consequences if Pakistan goes ahead
with the nuclear test.
The US was responding to reports that Pakistan is preparing to launch
another nuclear test.
Washington sees no immediate threat of a resumption of nuclear tests, but
remains concerned that either India or Pakistan may resume testing.
Both India and Pakistan have sent repeated assurances to the US that they
do not plan to conduct further nuclear tests.
( Channel NewsAsia.)