Obama Deputies to Debate Nuclear Trade Terms

Friday, Oct. 8, 2010

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, shown in April, is expected at a senior-level meeting next week to argue in favor of requiring two nations to give up nuclear fuel cycle rights to access U.S. nuclear materials and technology (Munir Uz Zaman/Getty Images).

Senior Obama administration officials are set next week to formally debate whether Jordan and Vietnam should be required to forgo their nuclear fuel production rights as a condition of entering civilian atomic cooperation agreements with the United States, Foreign Policy reported (see GSN, Oct. 7).
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg is expected to argue at the Oct. 14 meeting the department's view that the two nations should only have access to U.S. atomic energy technologies, fuel and related materials if they rule out domestic nuclear fuel production, which can generate nuclear-weapon material. A nuclear trade deal containing that provision was hammered out by the Bush administration and the United Arab Emirates and finalized in 2009 (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2009).

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