On nuclear arms, 2010 will challenge Obama

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – In the afterglow of success at his one-day UN nuclear summit, a satisfied Barack Obama was also realistic.

“The next 12 months will be absolutely critical,” the US president said. Lasting success, he knew, lies beyond some high hurdles to be cleared in 2010.

The 15-nation UN Security Council, with Obama presiding and other world leaders arrayed around him, last week unanimously approved an ambitious strategy for moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. That goal was embraced by Obama in an agenda-setting speech last April, when he also pledged pursuit of specific steps now envisioned in the new U.N. document.

But “we harbor no illusions about the difficulty,” Obama told Thursday’s council session.

Here’s a thumbnail analysis of that difficulty, the issues the Obama administration and international negotiators face in achieving major objectives:

Test-ban treaty

The widely endorsed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, outlawing all nuclear bomb tests everywhere, remains a treaty-in-suspension because it awaits ratification by a final nine nations with nuclear weapons or reactors, including the United States, before it can take effect.

A decade after a Republican-led US Senate rejected the pact, the White House hopes to push for ratification in 2010. Obama’s Democrats now have a strong Senate majority, but they’ll have to work hard to win the Republican votes needed for the two-thirds majority required for treaties.

Treaty advocates hope upcoming US intelligence and National Academy of Sciences studies will give a passing grade to the treaty organization’s nearly complete network of monitoring stations. In 1999, Republicans contended the planned system wouldn’t detect nuclear cheaters’ secret tests.

Fissile material treaty

The Conference on Disarmament, a 65-nation UN body in Geneva, was deadlocked for 12 years trying to open talks on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty banning production of nuclear bomb material, a stalemate resulting in part from the US position. President George W. Bush’s administration, leery of intrusive international inspections, had objected that such a treaty could not be reliably verified.

Obama reversed that in his April speech and in last week’s UN resolution, and called for a verifiable cutoff treaty. In May, a revitalized Geneva conference agreed on an agenda for such talks. By September, however, resistance from Pakistan stalled further progress.

At the moment, only India and Pakistan – and possibly Israel and North Korea – produce plutonium or highly enriched uranium for weapons. The Pakistanis, with a smaller supply, want a treaty to force archrival India to reduce its arsenal, not just cut off new production. The Obama administration promises stepped-up diplomatic efforts when the conference reopens in January.

Fuel banks

Last week’s UN resolution applauded the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to establish an internationally supervised fuel bank of low-enriched uranium for power reactors in developing countries. This would help keep enrichment technology – which can also produce highly enriched fuel for bombs – from spreading to more nations.

In June, the IAEA’s own 35-nation governing board blocked the agency’s request to move forward, as some delegates complained the plans might compromise their right to develop peaceful nuclear technology.