5/31/2005
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will ask its member nations to back an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would severely limit the agency’s ability to inspect any atomic activities in the kingdom, diplomats said on Tuesday.
The "small quantities protocol" is an agreement that countries which say they have little or no nuclear activities can sign with the UN nuclear agency. Diplomats close to the IAEA say that it’s a serious loophole in the agency’s inspection regime.
"The agency started raising alarm bells about the protocol last year," a Western diplomat close to the IAEA said on condition of anonymity.
"But in the meantime, until the IAEA board of governors decides to change the procedure, we are stuck with the status quo ... that when anyone applies for the (protocol), the IAEA is pretty much duty bound to recommend it.”
“Even with misgivings, they're stuck with these procedures," the diplomat said.
Diplomats say that Saudi Arabia had formally asked the IAEA earlier this month to sign the protocol, adding that member nations will discuss the request in June.
It will be difficult for the board to reject the Saudi request, though the U.S. and some European countries want the Saudis to hold off while they discuss the possibility of signing the protocol, diplomats said.
"Until we change the policy, we're stuck with the policy. How can you make an exception?" asked one Western diplomat on the IAEA board.
In February, the IAEA sent a classified report to its 35 member states saying that 86 countries had signed this protocol, almost half of the 188 parties to the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The report suggested asking all countries to abandon the protocol and not to sign new ones.
The protocol exempts NPT states from the obligation to inform the IAEA of stocks of natural uranium of up to 10 tonnes, which experts say could be used for making at least one atomic bomb.
The IAEA said in its report that the protocol "has the effect of holding in abeyance the implementation of most of the safeguards measures" as well as "obligations to provide certain information and the agency's right to request access to relevant locations,"
"As a result the (IAEA) does not independently verify a state's initial confirmation that it meets the requirements for (the protocol), nor that that state continues to do so," it added.
One diplomat said that once a country signs the protocol, IAEA inspectors loose their authority to discover any secret nuclear activities it is carrying out. "Once you sign the small quantities protocol, you're off the hook," he said.
Gary Samore, director of studies of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, says that it’s time for reforms. “It’s important to beef up the agency’s credentials” at a time of increased evidence of proliferation, he said.
Saudi Arabia denies that it is planning to develop atomic weapons, and diplomats close to the IAEA say the agency doesn’t possess any evidence to the contrary.