IAEA Director General Grossi was in Syria again (He was there in June.) and held a press conference in Damascus with the Syrian Foreign Minister. He reported having visited the site where in 2007 Israel bombed to destruction a nuclear reactor in construction, the buried remains of which are now being excavated, apparently under IAEA inspector observation.
Grossi also mentioned that IAEA inspectors will visit another site where there is nuclear material. He said: “We’re talking about a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use and Syria has decided to open up this site to the inspectors of the IAEA. This material will be accounted for and will be put within the international safeguard system.” No further details have been published (They can be expected to be discussed in the next DG report to the IAEA Board of Governors.)
Let’s see if DG Grossi’s remarks are correct regarding what the safeguards situation might be for those “few tons” of nuclear material. No doubt that they contain ‘natural’ uranium, i.e., uranium of 0.7% U-235 as it is mined from the earth. There are two possibilities, 1) that the uranium would have been suitable for fabricating fuel elements for the destroyed reactor, or 2) that it would not have been, requiring further processing.
For the first case, we look in INFCIRC/153 for the Starting point of safeguards:
34. Nuclear material of a composition and purity suitable for fuel fabrication or for being isotopically enriched, leaving the plant or the process stage at which it has been produced, …the nuclear material shall become subject to the other safeguards procedures specified in this agreement.
33. Safeguards shall not apply to material in mining ore processing activities.
So, if the material has that composition and purity, it should have been declared by Syria under its NPT safeguards agreement with IAEA and subject to NPT safeguards accountancy procedures. A declaration by Syria to IAEA of this ‘undeclared’ uranium will transform it into ‘declared’ nuclear material. All of which is no big deal, since it is just a relatively small quantity of natural uranium.
To explain “relatively small quantity,’ consider the second case. The nuclear material would not be subject to NPT safeguards, but it might be under the Additional Protocol (AP). Here is what one finds in the AP (INFCIRC/540) regarding Provision of information:
Article 2a Provide the Agency with a declaration containing…..
(vi) Information regarding source material which has not reached the composition and purity suitable for fuel fabrication or for being isotopically enriched, as follows:
(a) The quantities, the chemical composition, the use or intended use of such material, whether in nuclear or non-nuclear use, for each location in [Syria] at which the material is present in quantities exceeding ten metric tons of uranium …, and for other locations with quantities more than one metric ton, the aggregate for [Syria] as a whole if the aggregate exceeds ten metric tons of uranium… The provision of this information does not require detailed nuclear material accountancy.
Assuming that “few” is less than 10 metric tons, such material would not have to be reported under an NPT safeguards agreement or an AP - if case 2 applies to it.
But Syria does not have an AP in force, only its NPT safeguards agreement. As a voluntary confidence building measure beyond NPT requirements, Syria could offer IAEA the opportunity to visit and inspect the nuclear material, perhaps to make an enrichment measurement or take a sample.
Indeed, Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said at the joint press conference: "On July 17, we sent an official letter to the agency, in which we declared of our own free will the presence of nuclear materials at an undeclared site within the legacy left by the former regime." Shaibani said technical assessments indicated that the materials do not pose a risk, adding that they "will remain in Syrian national custody and subject to the agency's safeguards system."
So, dealing with the undeclared nuclear material should be simple. But it is not, because Israel has made its location a ‘war zone.’ Axios last week quoted US and Israeli officials as saying Washington and the IAEA reached an agreement to have the watchdog remove nuclear material stored at a clandestine site in Syria after having "reached understandings with Syria and Israel". Axios said Israel was closely monitoring a location called "Site 99", where Israeli officials say the Assad government stored nuclear material that was part of the Deir Ezzor project, also known as Al-Kibar, and that Israel had threatened to bomb it.
It becomes ever clearer to me that the NPT Member States should address NPT safeguards in a war zone. First, Russia in Ukraine, then Israel/U.S. in Iran; now Israel in Syria. Where next?
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