A classified document from the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran reveals that Western powers are willing to help Iran construct a low-water nuclear reactor instead of its nearly-completed plutonium-producing plant, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. This proposal is strikingly similar to the plan outlined in the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, the last international treaty intended to prevent a rogue state from developing a nuclear weapon.
As the AP reported:
The [document], entitled “Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” promises to supply Iran with light-water nuclear reactors instead of its nearly completed heavy-water facility at Arak, which could produce enough plutonium for several bombs a year if completed as planned. …
Outlining plans to modify that heavy-water reactor, the draft, dated June 19, offers to “establish an international partnership” to rebuild it into a less proliferation-prone facility while leaving Iran in “the leadership role as the project owner and manager.”
The eight-page draft also promises “arrangements for the assured supply and removal of nuclear fuel for each reactor provided,” and offers help in the “construction and effective operation” of the reactors and related hardware. It offers cooperation with Iran in the fields of nuclear safety, nuclear medicine, research, nuclear waste removal and other peaceful applications.
The offer to Iran shares many elements with the unsuccessful 1994 agreement with North Korea. In it, the United States promised to help build two 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear power reactors for civilian use if North Korea tore down a 5 megawatt reactor and plutonium producing plant that could only be used for creating atomic weaponry.
The deal fell apart after North Korea admitted in late 2002 that it possessed a clandestine uranium enrichment program and declared that it had “nullified” its agreement not to pursue nuclear weapons. In late 2003, the U.S.-sponsored Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization announced that it was suspending construction of the reactors because North Korea failed to meet “the conditions necessary for continuing the…project.”
North Korea eventually tested an atomic bomb in 2006. Wendy Sherman, who helped negotiate the Korean deal during President Bill Clinton’s presidency, is currently the lead negotiator in the Iran nuclear talks.
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