Brazil's refusal to allow the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to fully inspect one of its nuclear facilities has heightened suspicions about its commitment to nonproliferation.
Although Brazil signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1997 and said its nuclear program has peaceful objectives, suspicions over its commitment have simmered for more than a year.
They came to a head last week after the government confirmed that IAEA inspectors were denied access in February and last month to uranium-enrichment centrifuges at a facility under construction in Resende, near Rio de Janeiro.
PHOTO: AP
It cited the need to protect industrial secrets and said the centrifuges were, and will remain, off limits for visual inspection.
Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos said that Brazil had invested close to US$1 billion and years of research to develop its enrichment technology.
He said the performance of Brazilian centrifuges was 30 percent more efficient than those found in other countries.
"This is a technology we must protect," he said.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power plants or atomic weapons.
The doubts over Brazil's nuclear program were likely discussed during two days of closed-door meetings between Brazilian officials and the US Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation, John Wolf.
Wolf left Brasilia on Thursday after two days of meetings of the Brazil-US Joint Committee on Nuclear Energy Cooperation.
Brazil's uranium-enrichment program may be discussed next week during a visit by US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
When he arrived Friday in Rio de Janiero, Abraham said, "I don't want to leave the impression that the US and Brazil are not concerned about dirty bombs and terrorism. But I will not speculate on what topics will come up in my conversations with Brazilian officials."
According to the US State Department, those meetings should not be considered the result of "a reaction nor an expression of concern about Brazil's commitment to nuclear nonproliferation," said embassy spokesman Wesley Carrington.
But experts think concerns do exist over Brazil's commitment to nonproliferation.
"Brazil is beginning to be perceived as a country apparently wanting to reevaluate its commitment to nonproliferation and this is a big part of the problem at hand," said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
Its refusal to allow the inspections came "in the middle of Iran's and North Korea's challenges to the IAEA's authority," Wolfsthal said.
"Anything seen as undermining the IAEA's authority puts everyone on edge,'' he said.
Brazil's claim of protecting industrial secrets does not hold up because the IAEA has a "proven track record" of respecting such information.
Brazil's government laid plans for the development of nuclear weapons technologies in the 1970s when the country was governed by a military dictatorship whose leaders were oriented by a stern "national security" doctrine and a traditional rivalry with Argentina, which was also developing similar technologies during its military regime. But the plans were abandoned when Brazil returned to democracy in the 1980s.
Suspicions about the nuclear program started months before Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became president in January, 2003.
"Why should we be asked to use slingshots while others point their cannons at us. Brazil will only be respected when it is strong economically, technologically and militarily," Silva said about the Nonproliferation Treaty.
Six weeks later, as president-elect, Silva said his government would never consider building an atomic bomb and respect the treaty.
Worries that Brazil's technology could fall into the wrong hands has also stoked international fears.
Brazil has the world's sixth-largest uranium reserve and has had the capacity to enrich uranium since the 1980s, but has so far only done so for research purposes.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts. USAGM placed more than 1,000
RSS