Obama’s UN Nuclear Summit Sidesteps Iran, North Korea Disputes


By Bill Varner and Janine Zacharia

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will have Chinese and Russian support at the United Nations tomorrow for his bid to put the world body on record against the spread of nuclear weapons. That doesn’t mean those nations are ready to get tough with Iran or North Korea.

Obama, as the first U.S. president to preside over a UN Security Council meeting, will call for a vote on a draft resolution to curb the proliferation and testing of nuclear arms and to safeguard fissile materials. On those goals, he likely will have the unanimous backing of leaders gathered in New York, according to interviews with Security Council diplomats.

The resolution nonetheless avoids mentioning Iran and North Korea by name, reflecting disagreement among the U.S., China and Russia over how to deal with countries that are shirking their nuclear obligations. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and has tested nuclear devices. Iran is pursuing elements of a possible nuclear- weapons program while ignoring international demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

“At a time when those two cases are really at the nub of why we are biting fingernails about the future of these weapons, you probably want to err on the side of getting specific” in a UN resolution, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “If we let China and Russia dictate what the response will be, the game is over.”

Signal From Obama

Obama orchestrated the meeting during the opening session of the UN General Assembly to signal that reducing nuclear weapons worldwide is a priority, and to reverse some of President George W. Bush’s policies. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the accord might give a “beneficial impetus” to talks with China and Russia on how to halt Iranian and North Korean nuclear pursuits.

Chinese and Russian envoys who agreed to the resolution cautioned against such an expectation. They said the summit, which comes amid a U.S. effort to bring Iran into talks and to resume diplomacy with North Korea, doesn’t portend agreement on tightening pressure on either.

Chinese Deputy Ambassador Liu Zhenmin said his government insisted that the Security Council summit “should be confined to the overall review of nonproliferation issues.” The starting point was U.S. acquiescence that “no country-specific situations should be mentioned,” he said.

Russia, which is building a nuclear reactor for Iran and sells the country weapons, opposes tougher sanctions. China has long been cold to sanctions, saying it doesn’t want to interfere in another country’s affairs.

China-Iran Ties

China is helping Iran develop a major natural gas field, and Iran is one of China’s biggest oil suppliers.

The U.S. will try to align positions with China and Russia in a separate New York meeting today to prepare for Oct. 1 talks in Geneva between the Iranian government and the five permanent members of the Security Council, along with Germany.

The governments will confer on “what a reasonable degree of progress to expect would be,” John Sawers, Britain’s UN ambassador, said.

Iran has said the October meeting won’t include negotiations over its atomic work, and its UN ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, criticized the U.S. resolution’s affirmation of existing Security Council sanctions imposed on the Iranian nuclear and missile programs.

The U.S. has expressed concern at the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran may be close to having enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb, should its leadership decide to take that step. That assessment raises the possibility of tougher action against Iran should diplomacy fail.

‘Inexplicable’ Step

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said in an interview that discussions about new sanctions would be “inexplicable, and might even be counterproductive.”

Iran is addressing international concerns, Churkin said. The Russian diplomat forecast “difficult conversations” at the October meeting, the first involving Iran and European powers at which the U.S. will do more than listen.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sept. 18 the U.S. would still join the meeting after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again expressed doubts about the Holocaust, to “see what, if any, changes in approach, attitude, actions the Iranians are willing to entertain.”

Even without demonstrable progress on Iran this week, nuclear experts said the U.S. will move closer to positions Bush backed away from, including support for U.S. Senate ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Building Support

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based policy group, called Obama’s resolution the “kind of approach that can build support for the global nonproliferation system.” U.S. participation in a meeting to promote the test-ban treaty, which hasn’t entered into force, is a “tangible demonstration of the administration’s seriousness.”

The U.S. is also trying to strengthen the 1968 Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty by including a clause in the UN resolution that empowers nuclear exporters to get equipment back from a country that exits the accord, according to Scott Sagan, a nonproliferation expert at Stanford University in California.

“There’s nothing in the treaty that says you have to return anything,” Sagan said. “So we have the case of North Korea, which did withdraw, keeping material and technology they acquired while they were members of the treaty.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Janine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net; Bill Varner at the United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net

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All Father Barack wants to do is remove ALL OUR NUKES and Capabilities.

He is Purposely LETTING the war in Afghanistan fail at the cost of many many American Soldiers Lives and that is more than Disgraceful.

I don't really give a sh't about the Afghan People if they don't care about themselves, I care about United States Troops being used as a Brownie Point for a Stuck Up Ass POTUS that has not a single clue.

And if he has his way, we will sitting naked as a Jay Bird with no defenses what so ever.

Where did this guy hatch from anyway ??????

I mean the guy is freaking sick in the head the way he wants to destroy Defensive Mechanisms that have been in place with old alliances for decades.

He is opening us up to full bore attack by any 10 Penny dip-wad with a crayon and a Cherry Bomb.

I swear I believe the man is slightly retarded or maybe a LOT RETARDED.

You know, an Idiot Savant of sorts and that is a Short Sort.

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I really don't understand sometimes the Chinese and Russian insistence on supporting North Korea and Iran, respectively.

I mean, I understand the Chinese aren't wild about 100millions North Koreans flooding the border if the government falls, and I do understnad that Russia would rather keep American concentration on Iran / Iraq / Afghanistan than Eastern Europe.

But you'd think with the Obama admin giving away freebies across the world, the Chinese and the Russian would have more to loose by not supporting American foreign policy against these two-bit banana republics....

Think OIL. China gobbles up a ton of oil for its industrialization so as far as Iran is concerned, they'll send Iran little chinese school girls if it means more oil coming their way. North Korea, probably the Chinese don't want America getting the credit, they want the credit.