International Luxembourg Forum Supervisory Council meeting

The International Luxembourg Forum

On Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe

High-level panel discussion on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and current issues on nuclear security and disarmament

Date and venue:Tuesday 6 - Wednesday 7 December 2016, Conrad St James Hotel, 22-28 Broadway, Westminster, London, SW1H0BH, Great Britain

Overview: A high-level panel of scientists and experts will address current issues on nuclear security, disarmament and suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism at a London conference next month.

Following latest changes in the global international security system, as well as in nuclear sphere and following Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe will examine the latest developments on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran and the impact of his presidency on US relations with Russia. The forum has previously called for urgent and immediate efforts to rebuild U.S.-Russian relations to reduce the crisis of nuclear arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation.

For the first time, the conference of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe will take place in London, with international experts and former government officials from 14 countries, including Russia, U.S. and the United Kingdom. Special sessions will also examine current negotiations over the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty and elevated tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Established in 2007, the main task of the Forum is to analyze threats of proliferation of nuclear weaponry and to draw up specific proposals and recommendations to further ways of reducing nuclear weapons, strengthening nuclear and missile non-proliferation regimes, preventing attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and technologies by unstable regimes and terrorist organizations and resolving regional nuclear crises.

Chair: Dr Moshe Kantor, President of the International Luxembourg Forum.

Participants of the conference:

Vladimir Dvorkin

Chairman of the Organizing Committee, International Luxembourg Forum; Principal Researcher at the Center for International Security, IMEMORAS (former Director of the 4^th Major Institute of the Ministry of Defense); Professor; Full Member of the Academies of Military Sciences, Russian Academy of Austronautics; Major-General, ret.(Russia)

Hans Blix

Ambassador (former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency); Ph.D.(Sweden)

Des Browne

Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nuclear Threat Initiative; Member of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum; Founder and a Current Member of the Top Level Group of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation; Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Directors of the European Leadership Network (former Secretary of State for Defense; Secretary of State for Scotland; Member of Parliament), Lord Browne of Ladyton (Great Britain)

Mohamed ElBaradei

Director General Emeritus of the IAEA (former Director General of theI AEA, Vice President of Egypt),Nobel Peace Prize Winner2005; Ph.D. (Egypt)

Gareth Evans

Chancellor of the Australian National University (former Australian Senator and Member of Parliament, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Australia)

Igor Ivanov

President of the Russian International Affairs Council; Professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO), Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (former Minister of the Foreign Affairs; Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation); Corresponding member, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS, Russia)

Roald Sagdeev

Distinguished University Professor, Department of Physics at the University of Maryland; Director Emeritus of the Russian Space Research Institute; Academician (RAS, Russia/UnitedStates)

Outcome: In keeping with the Forum’s tradition, the Conference will produce a final document outlining its key conclusions and recommendations, which will be sent to heads of state, officials and heads of authoritative international organizations.

Background:

The International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe was established by decision of the International Conference on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, held 24-25 May 2007 in Luxembourg. The Advisory Council comprises 49 of the most authoritative and best-known international experts from 14 different countries.

The Forum is one of the most representative non-governmental organizations to bring together leading international experts in the field of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and arms reduction and limitation. The main bodies of the Forum are: the International Advisory Council and the Supervisory Council.

08:18 Question.Hello, thank you! John Ingham(?), Daily Express. In the literature that you put out before the conference, you mention that you will be discussing the threat of nuclear terrorism, dirty bombs, radiological material; Des Browne touched on it in his brief address. I just wondered if you could enlarge on that and explain how serious a threat you feel this, what evidence there is, and what can be done to control it? Thank you.

Des Browne.Thank you, John. Those of us who are familiar with the nature of these materials, you know, are aware, of course, that there is weapons-grade material, and then there are other radiological materials which cannot be exploded in the same way as highly enriched uranium and plutonium can be, but if they are dispersed, certain of these materials would have an effect on the environment in which they are dispersed, that would essentially mean that these environments would be a danger to people’s health. So, there are isotopes which generate the possibility of cancers, and there are certain of these isotopes that are more risky than others, so there are those that can be dispersed by explosives and have a – this is not a technical term, but have a stickiness, they will adhere to and become part of the materials that they engage with, and the long-term challenges of cleaning these areas are daunting.

So, it’s known what these materials are, and it’s known where they are, and they are used for peaceful purposes particularly, and they are used in irradiating blood and treatments of certain diseases, and in managing blood transfusions. So, they are dispersed quite widely in medical environments, and they are kept secure, and certainly in advanced countries they are kept very secure, and they are dangerous to people who deal with them directly.

So, there is significant intelligence that suggests that terrorists throughout the world know these materials exist and where they exist, and the efforts have been made to try and get these materials. So, for example, when ISIS took over the city of Mosul, they said that they had removed the cesium from blood irradiators in hospitals in the city of Mosul. I have no way of knowing, because I don’t have access to intelligence system, whether that is true or not, but the fact that they said that reveals that they know the degree of terror that that can generate if they have this in their possession.

So, the organization I presently work with, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, NTI, has a project in cities in the United States, and in parts of the United States, to remove this material from hospitals and replace it with alternative technology which is efficient and does the job as well with X-rays. And I just say this in the passing, my understanding is that when * terrorist investigation in Norway, the Norwegian authorities discovered that the person of interest had information that suggested that he wanted to do this in Norway, acted immediately by removing all of this material from all of their hospitals. So, there are programs in place in New York and in other parts of the world to remove these materials, and they have been removed completely, so you can remove the materials, or, if they have to stay, you can secure them to a level that would not be normal in civilian environment.

I’m not seeking to worry people unnecessarily about this, but I don’t think there is an intelligence brief on this issue anywhere in the world that does not suggest dirty bomb as a threat, and the terrorist organizations are expressing the desire to get their hands on these materials so they can use them in that fashion.

Question.Steve Leibowitz(?) from Israel, ILTV in Israel. There were comments made about the incoming Trump administration and ways to perhaps influence their policies on nuclear issues, but not specifically about his campaign promise, repeated campaign promise to cancel the Iran nuclear deal. I was wondering if there were any thoughts of including perhaps cautions to the Trump administration regarding the Iranian deal.

Hans Blix.Well, the Iranian deal was mentioned here this morning in the possible context that it shows that the P5, when they want to and they have a common interest, they can achieve a joined result. There are other such cases, as when the chemical weapons were used in Syria, again, agreement between the US and Russia in particular, but then agreement of the Security Council also resulted in international action, and we see at present time contacts between the members of the Security Council about trying to get in hand hostilities in Syria. And there are… We discussed also the evident interest among the P5 to get * escalation in North Korea, they have the same interests in US, Japan, Russia, and China. So, in this context Iranian issue was mentioned. I, for my part, certainly hope that the Iranian deal, which was sanctioned by the Security Council, and the whole(?) Security Council stands behind it, the P5 stands behind it, that it will not be torn to pieces by anybody at the present time. It goes without saying that it has to be observed scrupulously, and verified by DIA(?). I don’t know where my colleagues stand, it is my particular view on it, and I hope that’s the way it’s coming out when they have considered it thoroughly in Washington.

Des Browne.I just want to make a certain(?) point of it *. I think people need to understand this is a multilateral deal; this is not a deal between Iran and the United States. You know, this is a deal in which most of the world, and in fact this is a deal which was endorsed by a United Nations resolution, so this is a deal that the world has agreed to; essentially, a little smaller number of countries than the whole of the world negotiated it, but it’s a complex multilateral deal, and all of the parties to this agreement look to each other to observe the good faith of the agreement. So it’s not just the United States and Iran have obligations; everybody has obligations, and many European countries, you know, many European countries exercised the discipline they did in relation to sanctions, because these negotiations were going on, there is no question about that. So, we all own a part of this deal. And if this deal is to be revised, reviewed, reformed, enforced, we all have joint responsibility. So, I think the president of the United States currently, and the incoming president of the United States would be well advised to just bear in mind that the United States does not own this deal. 17:08

24:00 Jayantha Dhanapala.As far as my understanding of the negotiations which were conducted by the P5, and last one, and which came to successful conclusion, this, as Des said, was a multilateral negotiation, and it was finally sanctioned by the UN Security Council. As a country belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement, it was important to have a settlement, a peaceful settlement of the Iran issue. We welcome that issue. And as far as my knowledge of the JCPOA is concerned, it confined itself to the question of the possible development of a nuclear program, ensuring that the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes exclusively. The missile issue was not taken up. And the missile issue there is very clearly separate from the nuclear issue, and therefore any development of a missile program is independent of the nuclear issue. Once the nuclear issue settles the concerns of the international community, I think the question of a missile program is a separate issue which may have to be discussed at a subsequent program. There is no international agreement with regard to missile development, many countries have missile development. In fact, when I was Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, I tried to get a conversation going, a multilateral conversation going with regard to limits on missile development. But unfortunately, there was no consensus, no agreement on that. So, all countries have the right to develop missile programs. Missile programs are very closely connected with the launching of satellites as well. And so, therefore it’s a very sensitive area. 26:00

28:00 Gareth Evans.What’s in the toolbox, I think, is really only three things: containment, deterrence, and keeping the door open for negotiations. As difficult and as frustrating as that might be.

Sanctions are manifestly not working, changing the North Koreans’ mind; to hope that the Chinese can be persuaded or bludgeoned into putting enough pressure on the North Koreans to change their position is also, I think, a misconceived enterprise. Any military intervention would be crazy, and quite counterproductive in terms of achieving any objectives.

I think the North Koreans do recognize very well that any use by them of their weapons arsenal would not only be homicidal, but suicidal. And that is the best guarantee we have, that this threat will not actually be realized in practice. So, I think we have to stay patient, have to continue to look for opportunities for negotiation, but at the same time make very clear to the North Koreans that any use by them of their arsenals would result in their country and their regime being decimated.

And of course, international sanctions and international pressure to stop any flow of technology or material in and out North Korea are still very important; containment, in that sense, remains very important.

I think the notion of not being prepared to negotiate with the North Koreans without multiple preconditions being satisfied, which has been the position of the Obama regime in recent years, has not been very productive. Makes everybody feel better to say that preconditions should be satisfied, that North Korea should sign up to denuclearization agenda, but realistically it hasn’t achieved anything very much. I think we have to limit our objectives with North Korea to ensure that they… If possible, we get a freeze in the present situation and provide enough incentives for them to act accordingly. But the notion of achieving denuclearization at a backwards movement is going to be very-very difficult indeed, and I think we have to moderate our objectives in that respect.

But others may have a different view about this; there’s quite a distinction in the international community between those who want to be very-very tough indeed and pile on, pile on the sanctions in the expectation that this pressure will deliver results, and others, who, I think, are a little bit more realistic and say that the only way forward is going to be through taking a deep breath and entering into some negotiations. But this is something we’ll be discussing this afternoon, tomorrow, and you don’t want to take my views on this as the views necessarily of all my colleague. But I think negotiations are very important, we have to keep the door open for them. 31:13

31:58 Question.Thank you. Nina Ilyina, Vedomosti Business Daily; my question is to Mr. Blix and Mr. Browne. As my colleague has already mentioned, in October Russia suspended nuclear deal with the United States, mentioning sanctions. At the end of March Russia refused to send its delegation to Nuclear Security Summit hosted by Barack Obama, where dozens of top politicians were presented from all around the world. From your point of view, if we talk purely about non-proliferation and nuclear security, how necessary were both steps? Some critics say that Moscow used it as political tool. How much would they be right? Thank you. 32:46

33:23 Des Browne.OK. So, I think, I mean I think the question of… Some knowledge of this plutonium arrangement… I mean, this is not an area of my particular expertise, but those experts whom I have discussed this agreement with, and I work now in Washington with some people who were instrumental in the earlier processes that led to this agreement to destroy this weapons-grade plutonium, – it was a reciprocal arrangement between the United States and Russia that they would… Was it 34 metric tons? I think 34… Yes, 34 metric tons each.

So, I mean, this is an agreement which… I don’t think either side was meeting the deadlines that were agreed. You know, and in particular in the United States, the proposal was to build a MOX plant and use that plant to reduce, to destroy this material effectively. So, there are, I think, in direct answer to your question, there are many experts who look at this and think this was an agreement which was going nowhere in any event, was effectively suspended if… Because it hadn’t met its deadline. And therefore the formal abandonment of the agreement, or the formal derogation from the agreement was a political statement rather than a statement of reality. And that in fact none of this material is likely ever to find its way back into the weapons construction system, so, you know, the purpose of removing the plutonium in this fashion was to get rid of weapons-grade material, but effectively that was being achieved. Because of the way in which it was being secured and handled.

So, I think the direct answer to half of your question is that most people have the view that it was really a political statement, and the reason for Russia to express the conditionality, the three conditions that they wanted to be achieved before they would put it back together. I think, you know, more broadly, from those of us who are observers of the important relationship of the United States and Russia, it’s another expression of the deterioration of trust and confidence between these two countries, which is crucially important to the objective that we collectively aspire to, that is, the prevention of nuclear catastrophe. Because these two countries possess… I don’t know, what it is? 93% or something like that, of the nuclear weapons in the world? And most of the other countries, whom we would like to move towards multilateral disarmament, look at these large arsenals and say, “These two countries need to show the way, and we will join them when they get proportionally near where we are.”

So that relationship is crucially important. You know, and in 25 years we have seen 75 or more percent of the nuclear weapons in the world disappear, but it’s mostly been done by the United States and Russia bilateral arrangements, rather than multilateral arrangements, so… It may well be just symbolic, but it’s very important there are now really no extant agreements between these two countries that are moving in the right direction, and we desperately need to get back to that kind of relationship. But not at any price. 37:03

39:23 Des Browne.Well, it would be a brave politician who would give anybody any confident outcome for any referendum that took place in the world currently. I mean, your question is completely speculative. I mean, I don’t think there’s any possibility of there being a referendum in this country as to whether or not we continue to be a nuclear arms state. The parliament recently made a decision to renew the boats that are the platform for one nuclear weapon system, and that seems to commit us to nuclear deterrence for the next 50 years. So, I think, the politics of this country suggest that that is improbable that we will move from that in your lifetime and mine. And you’re younger than me. I think it’s improbable that we will move from that. I mean, my own view is that the complexity of the world and the challenges of cyber-security may make us all think carefully about these weapon systems and their command and control in the future, but that’s a different dynamic than politics. 40:42

ENSURING BREAKTHROUGH IN NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND NON-PROLIFERATION

DECLARATION of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe

December 7, 2016, London

The members of the Supervisory Board of the International Luxembourg Forum express their deep concern that the crisis of nuclear arms control continues to get worse.

This is happening against the background of massive violence and destruction taking place in Syria, where for the first time in many decades Russia and the United States openly conduct intensive combat operations without proper coordination or cooperation.

The implementation of the Minsk agreements on resolving theUkrainian crisis has been inconsistent and has been far from complete.

Russia and NATO continue arms build-up close to common borders and conduct military exercises of growing scale.

The INF Treaty of 1987, which historically provided a powerful start to a period of great achievement in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, is under growing threat due to unresolved US and Russian mutual accusations of non-compliance.

Although the New START Treaty is being implemented properly, continuity in strategic arms control dialogue has been lost for the first time in more than forty years, with a six year pause after the signing of the 2010 New START Treaty.

The positions of the two parties are as far apart as ever on ballistic missile defense development and deployment, the developing and testing of advanced long-range precision guided conventional systems, limitation of sub-strategic nuclear arms, non-weaponization of outer space, and conventional forces reduction and limitation in Europe.

Apart from the successful conclusion of the deal on the Iranian nuclear program of 2015, there was no further progress on enhancing the nuclear non-proliferation system and regimes. Moreover the 2015 NPT Review Conference ended in failure and in 2016 North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and test-launched ballistic missiles of expanding range.

The US-Russia agreement of 2000 on plutonium disposition has been suspended, as has been the program of scientific collaboration on nuclear energy, thus terminating the last vestiges of a quarter-century-long broad cooperation on safety and safe elimination of nuclear weapons and materials.

The deplorable reality is that none of these issues are presently receiving serious attention from decision makers and public opinion in either Russia or the West.

In an environment where there is not only protracted deadlock in arms control negotiations but a disturbing willingness to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to guarantee national security, one of the very few encouraging developments has been the international movement recognizing the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, and the support by a large number of countries for serious multilateral negotiations aimed at ultimately achieving a nuclear weapons free world.

We recommend the following steps to be taken as early as possible:

• The Russian Federation and the United States and other NATO countries should agree on measures for preventing dangerous military accidents at sea and in the air which may provoke uncontrolled escalation of conflict. In particular these steps should include modernizing and enhancing the 1972 US-Soviet Agreement on the prevention of incidents on and over the high seas and the 1989 Agreement on the prevention of dangerous military activities. As a next step the parties should agree on substantial limitation of the scale of military exercises, separating them geographically and expanding confidence-building measures of the Vienna document and Open Skies Agreement.
• The INF and the New START Treaties should be preserved and strictly implemented by the United States and the Russian Federation. Existing controversies over INF Treaty compliance, which has largely a technical nature, should be resolved in a constructive way under the strong political guidance of both powers.
• The two parties should initiate without further delay the talks on a follow-on START Treaty with the goal of achieving substantial reductions of strategic nuclear arms, limitation of strategic conventional weapons, and agreeing on confidence-building measures to ensure that the deployment of defensive systems of both parties do not undermine strategic stability.
• The two parties should proceed with constructive dialogue aimed at forging mutual understanding of the crucial notion of strategic stability, which should integrate missile defense systems’ deployment, and development of long-range conventional systems, taking account of the prospects of further proliferation of nuclear weapons, ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, as well as of antimissile systems in the world.
• The parties to the agreement achieved in 2015 in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program should do everything possible to achieve the proper implementation of this agreement by all sides. Constructive dialogue should be maintained by the parties to ensure that Iran remains a non-nuclear weapons state and does not resume any controversial nuclear program after the expiration of the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan.
• The UN Security Council Resolutions 2270 and 2321on the sanctions applied to North Korea must be strictly implemented by all parties.The dialogue on North-Korean nuclear arms and missiles programs should be resumed without delay in a workable format with the goal of preventing further nuclear and long-range missile tests by PDRK as the first phase of the long-term process aimed at denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
• Restoring global consensus that nuclear war must never be fought and can never be won must be a high priority. In that context, the nuclear armed states and their allies should reconsider their total opposition to any process of multilateral negotiations aimed at achieving ultimately a nuclear weapons free world. Reaching a complete ban on possession will necessarily be a complex and protracted process, but there is no obvious reason why such a negotiating process should not commence now. A realistic road map might start with a Convention banning any first use of nuclear weapons

We hope that the advent of a new US administration and the Russian response to it will present an opportunity for improved dialogue and consequent US-Russian steps aimed at protecting the nuclear arms control system and regimes. It may also lead to further progress in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

We call on the leaders of the United States and Russia to apply all necessary efforts to overcome the current crisis in nuclear arms control and achieve real progress in the near future.

The participants of the Supervisory Board of the Luxembourg Forum meeting: