Bolton Says U.S. Will Not Resume Nuclear Testing

Under Secretary of State John Bolton says the Bush administration has no plans to resume nuclear testing, which was halted by the United States in 1992.

However, Bolton said January 24 at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, that the U.S. Defense Department concluded in its recently released Nuclear Posture Review that a decision had been made to "try and upgrade our testing infrastructure. If the strategic circumstances in the world changed dramatically ... we'd be in a better position in terms of our testing and research infrastructure than we are now."

But Bolton, who spoke earlier at the Conference on Disarmament (CD), said the Bush administration is opposed to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) "and we have no plans to seek [U.S.] Senate action on it as part of the Nuclear Posture Review the Department of Defense recently concluded."

Following are additional terms and abbreviations used in the text:

Following is a transcript of Bolton's remarks:

The Honorable John R. Bolton
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
United States Department of State
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland
January 24

John R. Bolton: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be back. I hope that you all received copies of the text of the statement that I just read in the CD. In the interest of time because I know we're a little bit late here, I won't repeat that other than to say that it was intended as a general and comprehensive statement of our administration views on arms control. Obviously I covered a lot of ground that's not necessarily on the direct agenda of the CD. But I felt that it was important at the opening of this year's CD to give that kind of overview, and that's one reasons it was as broad as it was. But I'd be pleased at this point to take any questions about the statement or the CD or whatever's on your mind.

Question: If I could ask your view on CTBT, which you didn't make any reference to today. Do you feel that CTBT is still viable in the current context of the world? Does the U.S. have any plans at all -- two years, three years, five years from now -- to resume testing?

Bolton: As President Bush said during the 2000 Presidential election campaign, he opposes the CTBT and we have no plans to seek Senate action on it as part of the nuclear posture review the Department of Defense recently concluded that there was a decision to try and upgrade our testing infrastructure so as to make it possible to test in a relatively earlier time if a decision were made. This is been widely misunderstood. I'd appreciate the opportunity to correct it. We are going to continue to follow the moratorium on testing that President Bush announced. This is simply one way of being able to reduce the level of operational nuclear warheads with some feeling of assurance that if the strategic circumstances in the world change dramatically and a decision were made sometime down the road we'd be in a better position in terms of our testing and research infrastructure than we are now. We continue to review the safety and reliability of the current stock of warheads. That's something that's very high priority for the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, to be sure that the deterrent remains safe and reliable for ourselves and our allies. But, as I say, we have no plans to seek Senate action on the Treaty.

Q: Could you elaborate more on what you said in your statement on the Iraqi case concerning violations of NPT?

A: I think it's very clear in the three years since Iraq has completely excluded the U.N. Weapons Inspectors that they've been making efforts with respect to a number of weapons of mass destruction including attempting to acquire a capability in nuclear weapons. That's one obvious violation of their NPT commitments. That's one of the reasons why we have tried for so long to get the U.N. Inspectors back into Iraq. The head of UNMOVIC, Hans Blix, the former head of IAEA, was just in Washington to meet with Secretary [of State Colin] Powell and others, including myself. The problem with Iraq and its resistance to resolution 687 and its unwillingness to comply with its international obligations, remains a very serious issue for the U.S. and I think for everyone.

Q: On biological weapons, I'd like to come back to the argument that you considered the BWC protocol flawed and counterproductive but then the U.S. will present a number of new proposals which will focus on national export controls, nationally criminalizing activity and things like that. How much more productive could that be if you leave it to the nations concerned including the rogue states relying on their good will to do all this, especially since you said in a recent speech in Washington, if I am not mistaken, that this disarmament conference is like a get together of the police and the Mafia trying to discuss a safer world.

A: I think I said "to discuss their shared interest in law enforcement" actually, something like that. The measures that you referred to that I elaborated in the speech have already been presented. We began to consult with our friends and allies on them last summer in the run up to the BWC RevCon in November and I might say that we thought that they enjoyed very widespread support and hoped that had the RevCon come to a conclusion it would have endorsed them. I don't think that they alone solve the fundamental problem of non-compliance with the BWC, which is one of the reasons that we felt that the draft protocol that had been under negotiation was counterproductive. I think it diverted people's attention from what the real issue was. The real issue is that while the overwhelming majority of states are in compliance with the BWC, there are a number that simply have lied about the commitments that they have undertaken. I think it is one of our priorities to insist on compliance with international obligations that nations have undertaken and by focusing on the issue of non-compliance you can more precisely see just exactly where the problem is. And looking at the states that are in violation of the BWC and are seeking other forms of weapons of mass destruction, it is striking to see the coincidence between that list of nations and the list of nations that are states sponsors of terrorism in the more conventional sense. So I think we have a fairly discreet group of countries that are both pursuing weapons of mass destruction and have been aiding international terrorism and I think that as part of the global campaign against terrorism, as President Bush has made clear, we are going to be addressing that in the months and years ahead.

Q: You've made reference to Iraq and North Korea but no reference to Iran. What's the reason for that? You say that the U.S. insists on holding accountable states that violate the non-proliferation commitments. What sort of accountability structure do you have in mind?

A: This is like d����vu all over again: why did you name those two countries and not several others just as we had this discussion at the time of the Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference. The cases of Iraq and North Korea I think are particularly important now because they are the subject of not just the NPT Treaty Commitments, but other International commitments, the Agreed Framework in the case of North Korea and the series of the U.N. resolutions in the case of Iraq, which are intended to bring ultimately both those countries in compliance. They're countries that are both subjected to additional enforcement mechanisms, if you will, in addition simply to their underlying commitments under the NPT. There is no doubt that there are other countries that are also in violation of the NPT. But for the purpose of today's conference I wanted to stress those two because of the particular circumstances that I just mentioned. All I can say, in terms of naming other ones, stay tuned, I'm sure their time will come.

Q: And the accountability structure?

A: What we are trying to do is make clear that if you focus on non-compliance with existing treaty obligations, there ought to be ways, whether through our own action, through actions with like-minded governments, or coalitions of the willing, to make it clear to violators of the various arms control agreements that we are not simply going to allow the behavior to continue. Now I don't mean to indicate that there are specific plans in mind, but what I do mean to say is that the time in which countries could sign an international agreement like the Biological Weapons Convention and lie about their performance under it, and get away with it, hopefully is over.

Q: Two specific questions. First your comments on CTBT. With the CTBT being dead and with the U.S. now going slower, completely silent on this, will FMCT negotiations have any teeth? Would parties to the CD take FMCT talks seriously when the U.S. is no longer interested in CTBT. Second Question: what do you mean by civilized nations?

A: I think that the merits of an FMCT treaty stand on their on. I don't think they are linked to CTBT, and I think as I indicated in the statement, it's one of the objectives of Ambassador Javits and our delegation here to try and break through the gridlock that the CD's been in for the past six or seven years, and see in particular if it's possible to make progress on CTBT. It does indicate to us that one of the reasons that we are, as I think we all are, concerned about the situation on the subcontinent, is that we don't have a strategic framework, a policy framework, for dealing with the question of India and Pakistan's nuclear capabilities post-1998. The CTBT and the NPT obviously didn't do anything to slow it down since neither state was a party to the NPT. But it is a matter of high priority for the United States. Secretary Powell has been to the region twice most recently, and then a couple months ago as well. These are issues that we will undoubtedly being focusing on.

With respect with your second question on the definition of civilized states, I will simply leave it for today's purposes as saying that all those states that are not engaged in sponsoring, aiding or harboring terrorists, and the implication, as President Bush has said repeatedly, is even states that have been supporters or harborers of terrorists in the past can change their behavior. That's part of what global campaign is about not simply the multifaceted step financial, law enforcement, intelligence sharing, military, political and others, but helping to convince states that their long term best interest lies in abjuring terrorism and the pursue of the weapons of mass destruction entirely.

Q: In the plenary just now both Iraq and North Korea responded to your statements and both countries said that delegations from the International Atomic Energy Agency had visited their country recently and did not seem to have any problems. And North Korea accused the United States of not leaving up to the agreement that it signed with North Korea in 1994 and not building the two large reactors and saying that because of problems between the Congress and the administration deliveries of heavy oil that were promised had been delayed causing difficulties. Could you respond to those questions?

A: Let me do North Korea first. The fact of the matter is that North Korea has been in violation of its NPT obligations ever since it signed the agreed framework. It has not, to this day, permitted the IAEA sufficient access for the IAEA even to make a baseline determination of what materials and technology North Korea has. Let alone the kind of verification and analysis that the IAEA needs to be able to do to determine how much fissile material the North has. So, it is just a fantasy to say that North Korea has been cooperating with the IAEA. The United States has been in compliance with the agreed framework to the extent we can be, dealing with the regime like the one in Pyongyang. We are going to continue to try and work with Japan and South Korea to bring the North Koreans into compliance with their obligations to what they committed to in 1994. Time is running out and I think they are beginning to understand that. And as far as Iraq goes, why anybody takes what they say seriously I'm not sure I understand. If they are so confident about what they said here today, they ought to let the U.N. weapon inspectors in and allow them and IAEA to have full access countrywide, no game preserves, no sealed off areas, as they have for the past several years.

Q: If I could follow up, you said time is running out on the 1994 framework agreement, could you elaborate on that? The North Koreans, if I recall correctly, are saying that it's the U.S., Japan and South Korea that are not doing what was agreed to in terms of providing the light water reactor.

A: The agreement in Article 4 very specifically says that before the key elements to the reactors are delivered, North Korea has to come in full compliance with the NPT and their IAEA safeguards agreement. If you look at the time involved with how much is required to construct the reactors and to bring them fully into operation, and lay it next to the amount of time that IAEA will need to do the kind of professional job that they will do to verify whether in fact North Korea has made a complete baseline declaration and they have been able to do all their analyses, in order for those to come together, IAEA and its inspectors and the work it needs to do, needs to begin moving at a very rapid pace in the very near future. If that bubble of IAEA activity doesn't start in time, then the bubble underneath it of finishing the light water reactors won't be finished in time. But it would be clear after seven or eight years of not really facing that kind of time pressure, that if North Korea does not comply with the requirements of the IAEA, that it will be unambiguously North Korea in noncompliance. If they comply, then we will comply as well.

Q: Where you make a reference here to the CD having to face up to new threats by terrorist groups to acquire weapons of mass destruction, do you have any specific proposal in mind for this particular CD outside the framework of the bilateral weapons the NPT or the chemical weapons. Are there other things here in Geneva that they should be considering?

A: The main purpose of that remark and several other things I said was in response to the kind of comments, I'm sure if you have been listening to the remarks in the plenary session, you've heard people say it has been seven years of gridlock or some other say six years of gridlock, or five years of gridlock, but there isn't a lot of disagreement that the CD has not been performing up to its potential for quite some period of time. I think that there are a lot of issues that could be profitably be discussed in the kind of form the CD represents and I'm hoping that we can get some new thinking going. That's one way to break through the gridlock. Other ways would be for other governments to allow negotiations on the feasible material cut off treaty and so on. But I think it's time if the possibility is going to exist for the CD to be more productive, this is really the time to get moving on it.

Q: Can you throw some light where the U.S. stands on anti-satellite weapons? Your statement doesn't indicate anything about it.

A: My statement did say: we support the Outer Space Treaty and we have been concerned for quite sometime with threats that might be posed to our communications infrastructure and the satellite networks that we have in space. If you have not read the Rumsfeld Commission Report on the use of space, I think that's definitely something that could certainly tell you a lot about current thinking at the Defense Department. But as I said in my prepared remarks, we don't see any need for further agreements with respect to space at this point.

Thank you very much!