April 26, 2000

Mr. Chairman:

The global nuclear nonproliferation regime can be likened quite aptly to an architectural structure designed to draw strength from mutually reinforcing elements.  Safeguards help to protect and warn against any effort to divert nuclear material for illicit use.  Similarly, sound conditions of supply help to ensure that nuclear commerce does not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.  Meanwhile, regional nuclear weapon free zones help to fortify a larger NPT regime of global scope.  Together, these elements combine to provide a strong foundation -- both for international security and for peaceful nuclear cooperation.

In gathering to review the status of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, we can identify much valuable progress in strengthening several key elements of the global regime that surrounds it.

IAEA Safeguards

In the IAEA safeguards system, the past five years have seen major, indeed historic improvements.  In June 1995 members of the Agency decided to adopt new measures to be implemented under authority already in existence.  Then, in May 1998, members agreed to strengthen safeguards still further by establishing significant new measures under the Additional Protocol, known more formally as the Model Protocol Additional to Safeguards Agreements.

Since then, the IAEA and Member States have worked diligently to integrate the new measures with those in effect under INFCIRC/153.  In this effort, our common goal is to achieve what can be called an "optimum combination" of all safeguards measures: those conducted under comprehensive safeguards agreements and those based on Additional Protocols.

Optimization means achieving maximum effectiveness with rigorous efficiency.  We commend the efforts of the IAEA secretariat and Agency Member States to attain this goal, and we welcome the progress to date.

Identifying the "optimum combination"' of available measures requires a clear recognition that each measure has strengths and weaknesses.  Any change to traditional safeguards must meet several tests.  The "optimum combination" of measures must be technically sound.  It must provide for thorough coverage -- coverage, that is, of all plausible acquisition paths.  And it must be balanced, continuing to rely on fundamentally important traditional measures such as nuclear material accountancy while augmenting their value with a carefully chosen array of measures newly introduced.

Performed with careful calibration, the gradual shift to this "optimum combination" will strengthen the safeguards system not by giving it a different objective but by giving it an added objective.  The new system should provide assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear activity, while continuing to provide assurance of the non-diversion of nuclear material from declared activity.

With this broader scope, safeguards will strengthen the NPT regime and thereby contribute even more to international security.

The United States looks forward to the widespread adoption and effective implementation of these new measures.  Thus far over 40 states, including the five nuclear-weapon states, have signed Protocols, and nine Protocols have entered fully into force.  This is a good beginning, even if progress is disappointingly slow.

As we look to all States to negotiate and implement the new Protocol, we note that many states -- 52 in number -- have not yet entered even into the comprehensive safeguards agreements required under Article III of the Treaty.  We urge those states to do so in combination with signing and implementing Additional Protocols.

Our common goal should be to make strengthened safeguards the new international standard.

Integral to this improvement in the nonproliferation regime is ensuring that the IAEA has resources adequate to fulfill its safeguards responsibilities.  To that objective, the United States maintains a strong and continuing commitment.

Such resources should, of course, be expended with stringent efficiency as well as maximum effectiveness, and we commend the Agency for its hard work in seeking to achieve both as it develops the integrated safeguards system.

In any discussion of safeguards, we must take note of the two states that stand in clear violation of their safeguards agreements and of related resolutions by the U.N. Security Council.  We urge the DPRK to cooperate with the IAEA in coming into full compliance with its safeguards agreement.  We call on Iraq to implement fully its NPT and relevant obligations as directed by the Security Council.

Management of Plutonium and HEU

As we manage nuclear material to prevent proliferation, the safeguards system is our fundamental instrument.  But extra care is required in managing weapon-usable material.

We note with approval the International Plutonium Guidelines, adopted in 1997, which are designed to promote transparency and strategic planning in the civil use of plutonium.  The nine states that adopted these guidelines recognized the need to curb the unnecessary accumulation of separated plutonium and thereby agreed on the principle of "balancing supply and demand."

We remain strongly committed as well to minimizing the civil use of high-enriched uranium.  We are optimistic that new fuels under development using low-enriched uranium will make possible the conversion of virtually all research reactors currently using HEU.  We commend the decisions by several countries -- including Canada, Australia, France, China, South Korea and Thailand -- to design new research reactors using LEU.  Along the same lines, the program for Reduced Enrichment in Research and Test Reactors is working with several countries to develop a process that uses LEU in place of HEU to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99.

To help encourage states to convert to LEU, our own Department of Energy decided in 1996 to accept return shipments of research reactor fuel -- both fresh and spent, and both HEU or LEU -- from reactors where a pledge has been made to shut down or convert before May 2006.  We encourage others to adopt similar policies.  We hope that this committee's report will recognize the importance of minimizing the civil use of HEU.

Our strategy on weapon-usable material requires not only minimizing its production and use but also disposing safely and securely of material being released from defense uses as we progress in nuclear force reductions.  To this end, the United States' is working with the Russian Federation to convert excess fissile material to civil use and/or to render it unavailable for use in weapons.

Both nations are working with the IAEA to achieve a legal arrangement and an efficient system whereby the Agency can verify our success in taking these constructive steps and rendering our nuclear arms reductions irreversible.

Physical Protection and Illicit Trafficking

For all weapon-usable nuclear material, sound measures of physical protection are imperative if we are to defend effectively against unauthorized use.  Here international cooperation is critical.  We commend the IAEA for its efforts to assist member states in assessing and strengthening their physical protection systems.  The agency has made a valuable contribution by providing national-level and facility-level assessments through its program known as International Physical Protection Advisory Service.

A growing awareness of the central importance of physical protection is reflected in increased requests for training at the national, regional, and interregional levels and an increase in technical cooperation projects to promote the security of nuclear facilities and materials in the interest of nonproliferation.

In this area, we hope to see further advances through a strengthening of the international Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.  Specifically, we seek to ensure that nuclear material in domestic use, storage, and transport is accorded the same protection applied to nuclear material in international transport.  We look forward to the report of the Experts Group now considering the Convention and programmatic enhancements to strengthen the regime of international physical protection.

Nuclear-Weapon Free Zones

With regard to nuclear-weapon free zones, we recall that the 1995 principles and objectives decision supported the establishment of such internationally recognized zones as a means to enhance regional and global security.  That decision, which urged the creation of more zones by the time of this conference, recognized that cooperation by the nuclear weapon states is essential if these zones are to achieve maximum constructive effect.

The United States continues to support regional nuclear weapon free zone treaties that are consistent with our well-known criteria.  Accordingly in March 1996, we signed the relevant protocols to the Treaty of Rarotonga.  We worked closely with African nations on the Treaty of Pelindaba and were pleased to sign the relevant protocols in April 1996.

In Southeast Asia, we have continued to work intensively with regional nations to fashion an approach that will permit us to sign the protocol to the Treaty of Bangkok.  Similarly, in Central Asia we have been consulting closely with regional nations and welcome their progress in negotiations toward another nuclear weapon free zone.

Nuclear-Related Export Controls

As we seek to foster conditions conducive to commerce in technologies and materials for the peaceful use of atomic energy, export controls are an essential instrument in providing assurance that such commerce does not facilitate nuclear proliferation.  The Nonproliferation Treaty, in Article 111.2, specifically calls for export controls by requiring fall-scope IAEA safeguards as a precondition of supply of certain nuclear material and equipment.  The Zangger Committee was established to develop a common understanding of how to implement this requirement.

Today that committee and the Nuclear Suppliers Group provide an important benefit to all NPT parties by ensuring that nuclear commerce is conducted in a manner consistent with our shared nonproliferation objective.  The general knowledge that nuclear suppliers follow common guidelines serves to foster confidence that international security will not be subordinated to commercial interests.

The NPT Review and Extension Conference of 1995 endorsed full-scope safeguards as a condition of new nuclear supply.  This condition reinforces the principle of preferential cooperation among NPT parties.  The United States urges all states to implement this principle for new supply arrangements and to act promptly to bring all existing arrangements into conformity with this principle.

NPT parties have also recognized the importance of controlling dual-use exports.  Our knowledge of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, which relied heavily on the import of dual-use equipment, underscores this necessity.  The increasing spread of dual-use technology places a premium on broad implementation of such controls.

In 1995, the NPT Review and Extension Conference also adopted the principle that "transparency in nuclear related export controls should be promoted within the framework of dialogue and cooperation among all interested parties to the treaty."  To fulfill this objective, the NSG organized seminars in Vienna in 1997 and in New York last year on the role of export controls in strengthening nuclear nonproliferation.  All states were invited to attend, and speakers representing both NSG members and non-members presented a wide range of views.

In preparing for these seminars, NSG members prepared a collective paper that explains the origins, development, purposes and effects of nuclear-related export controls.  The IAEA has published this paper as information circular 539 (INFCIRC/539).

Conclusion: Continued Growth, Continued Success

Mr. Chairman, the last five years have seen important accomplishments in the areas under the purview of this committee.  The IAEA safeguards system has been strengthened.  Cooperation in managing and monitoring weapon-usable nuclear material has expanded, and so too has cooperation on the physical protection of those materials.  Nuclear-related export controls are more transparent than ever.  Nuclear weapon free zones are playing a larger role in regional security.

These substantive accomplishments convince us -- and we trust they will convince all concerned with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- that the treaty regime, far from deteriorating, is becoming ever stronger in its contribution to international security and to the cooperative sharing and constructive use of nuclear technology.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)