By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) – A proposed U.S. pact with Saudi Arabia on its development of nuclear power lacks the strictest guardrails that Democratic lawmakers had urged, according to a U.S. State Department letter sent to one of the senators.
The administration of Republican President Donald Trump said last year that it was pursuing a civil nuclear pact with Saudi Arabia to boost U.S. industry and strengthen diplomatic ties.
However, nonproliferation advocates are concerned because Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, has said that the kingdom would seek to develop nuclear weapons if regional rival Iran did so.
A dozen Democratic U.S. lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March urging him to push for a U.N. protocol – that Washington has backed for decades – that grants the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency broad oversight of a country’s nuclear energy activities, such as the power to carry out snap inspections at undeclared locations.
But a State Department letter dated May 18 to Democratic Senator Edward Markey, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, says the pact only requires Washington and Riyadh to forge a less onerous “bilateral safeguards agreement.”
The lawmakers had also urged Rubio to push for voluntary “gold standard” non-proliferation protections in any agreement with Saudi Arabia. Rubio had supported a gold standard for Saudi Arabia when he was a senator.
That standard, which Saudi Arabia’s neighbor the UAE agreed to in 2009 before it built its first nuclear power plant, bans enrichment of uranium and reprocessing of nuclear waste, both of which can be pathways toward developing fissionable material for nuclear weapons.
But the letter makes no mention of the gold standard.
The State Department’s Paul Guaglianone, a senior legislative affairs official, said in the letter to Markey that the agreement was in “final review” prior to Trump’s signing of it.
The agreement “lays the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar civil nuclear partnership between our two countries that advances several priority economic and strategic objectives,” Guaglianone wrote.
The White House did not reply to questions about when Trump would sign the agreement, or how it would ensure safety, but referred to a statement by Energy Secretary Chris Wright from last November saying the agreement has a “firm commitment to nonproliferation.”
The State Department said it could not discuss details of the proposed agreement as it was undergoing final review prior to signing, but a spokesperson said the draft contains all of the terms required by law, and reflects “a shared commitment by the United States and Saudi Arabia to strong nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation standards.”
The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘SELLING OUT NATIONAL SECURITY’
Markey said the Trump administration was “selling out national security” because the proposed pact lacks sufficient safeguards.
“Trump is giving nuclear-weapon-wannabe Saudi Arabia nuclear technology without the strongest safeguards, which is the same technology that the Trump administration went to war with Iran over,” Markey said in a statement.
Once Trump signs the agreement and sends it to Congress, the Senate and the U.S. House have 90 days to pass resolutions opposing it. If they do not, the deal would go into effect and allow the U.S. to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said Washington should push for stricter standards, including for enriching uranium, given that reactors can operate for decades. “If you let a country make nuclear fuel, you’d better hope they are your friend forever,” he said.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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