Iran to Respond to IAEA Uranium Proposal this Week

Iran Set to Respond to Atomic Deal this Week - Associated Press [link]

• Iran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency will present Tehran's position on a draft nuclear fuel deal in Vienna on Thursday, the semi-official Mehr News Agency reported on Wednesday.
• Mehr, citing an informed source, said Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh would personally give Iran's response to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
  
  

National Security Adviser Jones to Russia Wednesday - Washington Post [link]

• National Security Adviser James L. Jones will travel to Moscow Wednesday to help push along talks over a new strategic arms-control treaty, the Obama administration has announced.
• In a statement, the White House said Jones was invited by his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev. Jones will also meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other Russian officials.

White House Nuclear Weapons Goals Analyzed - Aviation Week [link]

• The goal of a world without nuclear weapons and related nonproliferation efforts will be secured not by the looming Russian-U.S. deal over a follow-on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), but by the “treaty after next,” a panel of U.S. experts in Washington agreed Oct. 26.
• And the next 12 months will be critical in making or breaking that opportunity.
• “The Start treaty is a down payment,” said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and a former congressional defense aide. “Serious” disarmament talks can only come after the next Russian-U.S. deal.

Tokyo Welcomes News of Obama Hosting Nuclear Security Summit Prep Meeting in Japan - The Mainichi Daily News [link]

• Tokyo welcomed the news that a preparatory meeting for next spring's international summit on nuclear security is going to be held in Japan in December, on the initiative of U.S. President Barack Obama who has pledged to seek a nuclear-free world.
• Visiting National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Thomas D'Agostino announced Japan's hosting of the preparatory talks on Tuesday.
• D'Agostino said the U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which President Obama has been seeking, would not adversely affect U.S. maintenance of its nuclear weapons.

Hagel to Lead Obama's Intelligence Oversight Panel - Foreign Policy The Cable [link]

• Former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel will soon have a new role in the Obama administration, he will be named co-chair of President's Intelligence Advisory Board.
• In that capacity, Hagel will be charged with overseeing the work of the intelligence agencies for the president and investigating violations of law by the clandestine community.
• Note: Senator Hagel is a member of the Ploughshares Fund Board of Directors.

A Shift in Focus: Changes in the Missile Defense Program - Kingston Reif in Foreign Policy in Focus [link]

• FPIF spoke with Kingston Reif, Deputy Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, to understand the reasons for the [missile defense] changes and its effects on American foreign policy.
• Read more of Reif's thought about missile defense in his Nukes of Hazard post.

 A View from the Dark Side

Sanction Iran Now - Henry Sokolski in Forbes [link]

• The deal was to take most of Iran's low-enriched uranium--which Iran might otherwise enrich further to make a bomb--and convert it into fuel to run its Tehran Research Reactor. Friday came and went without an official Iranian reply. Almost as predictably, White House officials indicated they would wait a bit longer.
• Instead, whatever Iran does, we should impose additional sanctions and continue to do so until Iran suspends its nuclear fuel-making activities and allows the IAEA to flood the country with nuclear inspectors.