BUSH: CURB NUKE FUEL

Several coun­tries, includ­ing Iran and North Korea, are accused of hid­ing nuclear weapons pro­grams behind the veil of atomic power efforts. That’s why the President is announc­ing a new ini­tia­tive to keep nations from get­ting the equip­ment and fuel needed to make nuclear energy.
For decades, America and her allies have tried to limit which coun­tries get nuclear weapons. But they’ve largely left atomic reac­tors alone. Now, that’s about to change.
The New York Times calls it a re-examination of the “‘basic bar­gain’ under­ly­ing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: that those states that promise not to pur­sue nuclear weapons will receive help in pro­duc­ing nuclear fuel for power gen­er­a­tion.”
According to the paper, Bush, in a speech this after­noon, won’t ask “for a reopen­ing of the 1970 treaty, which one [offi­cial] said would be ‘too hard.’ Instead, he will appeal to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, 40 coun­tries that sell most nuclear tech­nol­ogy, to refuse to sell equip­ment to any coun­try that is not already equipped to make nuclear fuel, either by enrich­ing ura­nium or by repro­cess­ing spent fuel for plutonium.”

February 11th, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.