[Title rendered into English, by reader request: Chung Mong-joon (“MJ”), the U.S.-South Korean nuclear cooperation agreement (“123 agreement”), and the State-Level Approach (SLA) for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. -Ed.] On the occasion of Chung Mong-joon’s appearance at the…
In a few weeks, South Korea’s newly-elected President, Park Geun-hye, will arrive in the United States on her first state visit. Between now and then, Washington and Seoul will be working on a diplomatic response to accompany their resolve not to…
In January I discussed the prospects for including a serious nuclear cooperation component in a future comprehensive deal to resolve the Iran crisis, permitting Russia to provide Iran with PWR fuel-fabrication infrastructure to complete the front end of its civil…
It’s late Saturday afternoon here in Ipanema, 28 degrees C and fair, and my options are to go back to the beach or blog this. So if I get a little speculative as the paragraphs wear on, just chalk it…
The Republic of Korea and the United States are running out of time to finish negotiations on a bilateral agreement for nuclear cooperation. The current agreement from 1974 expires next March. The conventional wisdom is that because the U.S. Congress…
Unlike the petroleum we import, most of the uranium which fuels the world’s 400-plus nuclear power reactors comes from politically stable regions. If a lot more reactors are built, and the demand for uranium significantly increases, more of it might come from less-secure sources. In anticipation of a nuclear…
Yesterday morning here over a latte and a croissant–Kurfuerstendamm Ecke Schlueterstrasse–I got my ear bent by someone telling me that Israel and Western countries are now worried about the fate of 50 metric tons of uranium secretly stashed away in Syria. Reflecting for a couple of minutes after clicking off my…
The last time someone came up with a scheme to square the circle with Iran was back in 2010, and the leading actor was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The “Lavrov Plan” never took off because the U.S. and European powers wouldn’t embrace it, for reasons including differences over how to handle orders to Iran from the United Nations…
During the Obama re-election campaign and afterward some people have been stirring the pot on ex-Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, but now we can mull this item which popped up from the National Security Archive today. I don’t think we can say off…
In anticipation of this week’s meeting in Tehran between Iran and the IAEA, there has been some buzz about what should happen with the IAEA’s file on “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program if in fact the U.S. administration decides to…
