CND Press Roundup - 11 December

Iran nuclear deal

• Biden plans
• Biden’s nominee for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has said that the incoming administration hopes that by rejoining the 2015 nuclear deal, Tehran’s nuclear programme would be “put back into the box”. Sullivan said Biden’s goal was to get Iran “to come back into compliance.”
• He added, speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Summit: “”This is really up to Iran. If the country’s leaders refused to rejoin the nuclear accord, the US could go to the rest of the world and say, you’ve got to join us now to formulate a strategy that would show the Iranians there really is no other choice”. Source: Middle East Monitor.
• Tensions in the region
• Meanwhile, two American B-52 bombers flew a ‘show-of-force’ mission in the Persian Gulf on Thursday. Pentagon officials said the flights were intended to ‘deter Iran and its proxies from carrying out attacks against United States troops in the Middle East amid rising tensions between the two countries.’ This marks the second time in three weeks that US Air Force bombers have undertaken long range flights near Iranian air space on short notice. Aircraft from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain were included. Source: NYT.

Nuclear weapons

• New START
• Biden should immediately extend New START upon taking office, and “use it as a foundation to pursue new arms control agreements”, Glenn Nye and James Kitfield, fellows at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress,argue in a new piece. Source: Defense One.

Nuclear power

• Finland incident
• One of Finland’s nuclear reactors entered an automatic shutdown after a spike in radiation was detected in the plant’s systems, but reports say that no radiation escaped the facility. “This is a significant and an exceptional incident and we consider it important to spread correct information about it” Finland’s Minister of Social Affairs and Health Aino-Kaisa said. Radiation levels have now returned to normal. Source: Al Jazeera.
• The IAEA’s press office release the following statement about the incident, saying more information will be provided in due course: ‘The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed today at 11:56 (UTC) by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) about an event at Unit 2 of the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant. Elevated radiation levels were measured inside the plant and the reactor was shut down. According to STUK, no radiation from the plant has entered the environment. Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant is located on Olkiluoto Island about 220 km northwest of Helsinki.’ Source: IAEA. 
• French nuclear
• Despite Macron’s rhetoric on nuclear power, he intends to reduce French reliance on nuclear energy to 50% from 75% by 2035. This has led to strikes by French nuclear workers, who reduced power generation by more than 1 gigawatt through their work stoppage. French unions are afraid that the split between EDF’s nuclear and renewable energy activities proposed in Macron’s reform package will ‘pave the way for a dismantling and privatisation of the group.’ Source: Nuclear Engineering & Reuters. 
• Belarus plant
• Lithuania has warned EU leaders that there have been three incidents of equipment failure at Belarus’ new nuclear power station since it started generating electricity last month. The plant was switched on, according to Lithuania, without implementation of EU or IAEA recommendations. The country’s memo warned that the ‘unsafe’ facility “might cause significant risks to the EU.” Source: euobserver.

NATO

• US-Turkey tensions
• The Trump administration will imminently impose sanctions on Turkey in response to its acquisition of Russia’s S-400 missile defence system. An official told reporters that the sanctions will be announced today, and will be ‘as mild as possible’ in order to placate Congress ‘while avoiding serious damage to the extensive US-Turkey military relationship.’ Source: FT.
• The Turkish lira weakened by around 1.4% following news of the sanctions, which could hit an economy already facing a pandemic-induced recession, ‘, double-digit inflation and badly depleted foreign reserves.’ A senior Turkish official told Reuters: “Sanctions would not achieve a result but be counter-productive. They would harm relations,” the official said. “Turkey is in favor of solving these problems with diplomacy and negotiations. We won’t accept one-sided impositions”. Source: Reuters.
• This came shortly after President Erdogan said he would discuss the strained relations with Biden when he takes office: “In diplomacy, a path is found to these issues by talking and meeting. (...) I believe we will manage this period very differently with the United States.” Source: Reuters.

To read:

• Nuclear risks are growing, and there’s only one real solution (Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)