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IS Could Get Hold of ‘Active Materials’, Expert Says

ISIS Could Get Hold of ‘Active Materials’, Expert Says
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An ambitious project of turning the Middle East into a WMD-free zone gets a new impetus with the emergence of new violent players, like IS. Yet, obstacles, which have been stalling the initiative for several decades, still remain.

What are the obstacles and how can these be overcome? This is something Radio Sputnik is discussing with Sverre Lodgaard (Norway) and Vladimir Kozin (Russia).  

The issue of the ME as the WMD-free zone is high on the agenda of the conference held in Moscow on November, 21- 22. The event also covers chemical weapons and the nuclear safeguards, as well as the Iranian nuclear program, and the upcoming review conference of the NPT scheduled for 2015.  Participants to the conference have come up with a new proposal aiming to boost the process, which has been stalled for 40 years.

Says Sverre Lodgaard, Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs:

The main challenge relates to the one nuclear weapons state that exists in the region, that is to say – Israel – which does not admits having nuclear weapons, and therefore it becomes very difficult to involve Israel in any discussion of the nuclear weapons in the ME. The second challenge has to do with Iran and we shall soon get to know whether there is a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear conflict with that country. If there is not, then many other countries in the ME will also establish nuclear programs. And that will complicate the problem even more.

Egypt used to be the country pressing, first of all, above all others, for a zonal arrangement in the ME. But Israel, on its part, says that, first, peace has to be established in the ME, it has to become a stable prospect. And we are very far from that kind of a situation. So, the conference that was due to be held in 2012, has still not been convened. And that is a serious situation, especially in the view of the next review conference for the NPT.

And again, there is another factor which has come into play. And this is the so-called IS.  This region, like you have just mentioned, is not exactly free of weapons of mass destruction, so how real are the chances that extremists could get hold of the WMD?

Sverre Lodgaard: Fortunately, IS operates in a part of the ME where there is no major nuclear facility. They could get hold of the active materials used for medical purposes in hospitals. But beyond that, there is no immediate prospect, I think, for IS to get hold of the materials that could be in a nuclear explosive device.

But we have a very disturbing situation in Pakistan, which is a nuclear country and the borders are porous, as we all know.

Sverre Lodgaard: That is correct. But also, the Pakistani Government is keen on controlling its nuclear weapons arsenal. We had a very severe case 10-15 years ago with the illegal supply network operated by Qadeer Khan, who has been named the father of the Pakistani bomb. But that network was exposed and presumably it has been closed down.

Do you see any real chances that the situation could start moving in the face of new challenges and new threats or is it going to get worse and worse?

Sverre Lodgaard: It is very hard to be optimistic about the ME. But to the extent that we can spot something moving for the better, it relates to Iran and to the possibility of getting a diplomatic settlement of the dispute with Iran. And that we will get to know much more about next week. The factors indicating that there might be an agreement are, first of all, that there is a commonality of national interests between the US and Iran, both in Pakistan and in Iraq, the common enemies, if not the common friends.

And then, the alternatives to a diplomatic solution are very bad. Nobody would like to have another war, except for maybe Israel. And the sanctions do not function as envisaged. When they were first imposed by the UN in 2006, Iran had over a few hundred centrifuges spinning. And a year ago when an interim agreement with Iran was reached, they had 19 000.

So, the common interests are there, the alternatives are bad. That speaks for an agreement. But still, I think the states participating in this negotiation are significantly apart, when it comes to the scope of the enrichment program and how soon or how much time it would take to lift the sanctions. So, I'm keen on seeing what happens next week. The self-imposed deadline is November 24th.

Says Prof. Vladimir Kozin, Chief Adviser and Head of the Group of Advisers to the Director, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies: 

For the first time this idea appeared in 1974, that is exactly 40 years ago, first of all in the form of NFZ or the nuclear free zone. But later on, in the 1990’es of the last century it has been supplemented by chemical and biological weapons. So, since then it became the weapons of mass destruction free zone embracing the three key areas in the WMD – nuclear, chemical and biological-bacteriological weapons. In 1993 Jordan and Israel in their joint declaration started using this comprehensive formula concerning the WMD free zone. And the NPT review conference held in 1995, the same formula appeared in the final document.

So, it is quite a long time since the world community began debating on this issue. But the reason why it hasn’t been formulated yet or has not been established yet is that the world community had spent a lot of time on just debating either the concept of this WMD free zone or the approaches, or mapping out specific roadmaps, arranged a lot of meetings and discussions involving thousands of participants and a number of meetings of different kinds.

But, unfortunately, up to the moment we are talking to each other there is no draft treaty on this very important zone, by the way, the first one in our contemporary history. In the past there have been several nuclear free zones only, covering Africa, the Central Asia, part of the Pacific Ocean, the southeastern part of Asia and Latin America as well, but it was not like the WMD free zone.

So, it is high time the world community should have drafted this kind of treaty, because to debate only principles or concepts, or approaches – that is not sufficient. It is an ineffective way of resolving a very specific and concrete issue.

That’s why I have decided to table my own draft in the private capacity, because I think that it would be much easier for the world community and for the interested states to debate the draft treaty per se, rather than various approaches, roadmaps etc, because if a treaty is on the table in front of you, you can very easily see its positive sides and its setbacks. And you can amend it or improve it, or delete some clauses and paragraphs that, for example, are irrelevant.

Talking of the ME, several attempts have been made to create at least a nuclear free zone in the ME and they, too, have failed. 

Prof. Vladimir Kozin: In my draft I wanted to include all the states located in the ME area. In my draft treaty there are 17 states in the region, stretching from Egypt and Turkey up in the north to Israel in the south and in the eastern direction to Iran and Iraq. A number of states – namely Israel and Turkey – they have nuclear capabilities. Israel has its own nuclear weapons and delivery systems and Turkey has the American nuclear forces in terms of the freefall tactical nuclear bombs…

But Israel still does not acknowledge that it possesses nuclear weapons.

Prof. Vladimir Kozin: It doesn’t matter. The world community acknowledges that Israel has nuclear weapons. It is actually labeled like a de facto nuclear weapons state, not de jure like the P5 – Russia, the USA, France, the People’s Republic of China and the UK. But also Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea are labeled and characterized as the de facto nuclear weapons states. By the way, they have not subscribed to the NPT so far.

And that’s the point. And another point is that if Israel still doesn’t acknowledge its nuclear status, how would it be a subscriber to the new treaty?

Prof. Vladimir Kozin: Probably, Israel and Turkey would say that we are not going to sign this international treaty on the WMD free zone, because we are unhappy with this kind of option. But nevertheless, the draft treaty should be tabled. Probably they will look through and probably they will find it relevant, because, for example, in the concept of the WMD free zone not only the nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons are included, but the delivery systems as well.

But in my draft I specifically omitted the delivery systems, because they are dual-capable. They can be used to deliver conventional strikes, as well as nuclear, chemical, biological strikes as well. I seriously doubt that these 17 countries in this western area in the ME would agree to eliminate, for example, dual-capable aircraft in their air forces. It is incredible and they won’t do this. But, nevertheless, let’s try, because if there is no draft treaty like my own, it means that the world community could sit and tackle this issue for another extra decade, 50 or 60 years more.

So, the practical step I think is the draft treaty, not debating on the concepts, not waiting, for example, when the situation in the ME will be improved, because some countries are arguing that – okay, this idea is fine, but let’s improve the overall political and military situation in the ME first. But it is very difficult to improve it. We have recently seen another waging of clashes in the Gaza area between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and the terrorist attacks. So, I'm still in favor of this kind of approach, because I'm actually a person of practicalities. And if an idea is being tabled, the next step is how to implement it. So, the draft accord should be in place.

And by the way, it is not for the first time that I'm doing this kind of job. In the 1980’es I also tabled a personal draft of creating a nuclear free zone in the Baltic Sea area. And it was widely accepted in the northern countries of Europe, and especially those little countries in the Baltic Sea. The only country that objected was the US, for the obvious reasons. But nevertheless, such an experiment with tabling a draft treaty, I think it is a practical solution. It is a very good step forward and it should be debated in practical terms.

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