Israel Matzav

Iran's new chapter: Belarus to sell uranium?

With any two other countries this would probably sound like an ordinary trade agreement (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in December 2009 that Tehran and Minsk were laying the foundations for broader ties and intended to promote relations to the highest level possible.

Also, Belarusian Prime Minister Sergey Sidorskiy in a meeting with Iran's Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani in November 2009 urged the Iranian side to increase the volume of trade cooperation with Minsk.

Noting that the current volume of economic cooperation between Tehran and Minsk stands at about $100mln, Sidorskiy reiterated that the opening of the second Iranian Bank in Belarus should help boost the volume to $1bln.

The National Bank of Belarus registered two Iranian banks, namely the 'Onerbank' and 'Trading Capital Bank (TC Bank)', respectively in October 2009 and December 2008.

The Belarusian official also expressed satisfaction over his country's joint investment with Iran in the car industry as well as oil, petrochemical and development projects.

Iran is supposed to be under international sanctions - which obviously Belarus is violating - but that's the least of the issues here. In August of last year, Belarus suspended a package that would have seen it give up a supply of highly enriched uranium.

Belarus is the only country from the former Soviet Union outside of Russia to possess large stocks of highly enriched uranium, and the agreement, which was signed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Belarus foreign minister, Sergei Martynov, was hailed at the time as a major foreign policy success.

After the Soviet collapse 20 years ago, the United States moved quickly to secure the nuclear stockpiles left largely unguarded in the newly independent countries, which were reeling under political and social upheaval. But Belarus, a highly authoritarian and extremely poor former Soviet republic, had long resisted giving up its nuclear fuel. Its stockpile is one of its few bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States and regional power brokers for the loans and handouts it needs to sustain its Soviet-style command economy.

The Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it would continue to abide by international regulations in securing its stockpile. American officials say Belarus possesses about 485 pounds of highly enriched uranium, though outside experts give varying numbers and it is unclear how much of the material has been enriched to weapons grade.

Matthew Bunn, an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard who specializes in research of nuclear theft and terrorism, said he saw little or no risk that the material, which is housed in a secure site, could fall into the wrong hands. Still, Mr. Bunn said, the issue needs to be addressed because “it’s one of only a few stocks that are enough for a crude terrorist nuclear bomb.”

Belarus said it would restart the transfer program only when the United States removed the sanctions.

By the way, those are sanctions on Belarus, not on Iran. Read the whole thing.

Could Iran have that uranium in mind? (Belarus does not have any currently functioning uranium mines - I checked).

What could go wrong?

Labels: Belarus, Iran sanctions regime

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:56 PM