Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Robert Gibbs

Showing posts with label Robert Gibbs. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Belarus to eliminate highly-enriched uranium stocks

The ex-Soviet state of Belarus announced Wednesday it would eliminate its stocks of highly-enriched uranium by 2012, following talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton won the pledge from Belarus Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov after talks on the sidelines of the OSCE summit in the Kazakhstan capital Astana.
"Foreign Minister Martynov announced that Belarus has decided to eliminate all of its stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and intends to do so by the next nuclear security summit in 2012," said a joint statement.
"The United States intends to provide technical and financial assistance to support the completion of this effort as expeditiously as possible."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the move "a significant step forward" and Clinton praised "a sign of progress in efforts to advance nuclear security and non-proliferation."
"This removal represents a significant, as I said, step for President (Barack) Obama's worldwide effort to secure nuclear material," Gibbs said More at: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Belarus_to_eliminate_highly-enriched_uranium_stocks_999.html

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Iran says nuclear swap must be based on Brazil-Turkey deal

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=247854211242866212 Tehran (AFP) Nov 3, 2010 Iran said on Wednesday that any nuclear fuel swap with the major powers must be based on an agreement it signed with Brazil and Turkey, dismissing reports a revised proposal was on the table. "If the Vienna group is ready for negotiation over the fuel swap... it would be based only on the framework defined in the Tehran Declaration," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state news agency IRNA.
Mottaki was reacting to reports that the six major powers which have been seeking to allay international concerns over Iran's nuclear programme have been drawing up a new fuel swap deal to replace one proposed last year.
Under the deal drafted in October last year by the UN nuclear watchdog, Iran would have received fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran from France and Russia in return for shipping out most of its stockpiles of low enriched uranium.
After a prolonged stalemate over the proposal, Brazil and Turkey brokered a modified agreement in May but the United States rejected it, arguing it failed to take into account additional uranium enriched in the meantime and led the Security Council in imposing a fourth package of UN sanctions.
Last month, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said any new fuel swap deal would be more onerous than the one on the table last year as Iran needed to be accountable for its persistent defiance of Security Council ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment.
"In order to live up to the responsibilities that they have made and to lift any sanctions, they would have great responsibilities," Gibbs said on October 28.
"The responsibilities get greater each and every day even as the sanctions impact their economy more and more."
Gibbs spoke after the New York Times reported that Washington and its European allies were preparing a new, more onerous offer for Iran than the one proposed last year.
The new offer would require Iran to send more than 4,400 pounds (1,995 kilogrammes) of low enriched uranium out of the country, an increase of more than two-thirds from the amount required under the deal proposed last year.
Iran and the major powers are set to hold fresh nuclear talks later this month after a year-long hiatus. The world powers want the talks to focus on Iran's overall nuclear programme.