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The White House's Office of the Press Secretary posted the President's January 23, 2008, letter of transmittal to Congress of an accord to permit civil nuclear cooperation between the United States and Turkey.
Quick background: Before the US can export nuclear goods to a country, American law requires the Executive Branch and the potential importing country to negotiate a special type of agreement (known as a "123 agreement"), and the President to submit this agreement, along with other required assessments, for review by the Legislative Branch. Once this is done, members of Congress have ninety days of "continuous session" to evaluate the agreement and, if they wish to amend or block the agreement, to pass legislation. If nothing happens after those ninety days, then the agreement becomes law of the land.
From the letter of transmittal, two important paragraphs on the deal's long and winding road stand out:
The Agreement was signed on July 26, 2000, and President Clinton approved and authorized execution and made the determinations required by section 123 b. of the Act (Presidential Determination 2000 26, 65 FR 44403 (July 18, 2000)). However, immediately after signature, U.S. agencies received information that called into question the conclusions that had been drawn in the required NPAS [Nuclear Proliferation Assessment Statement] and the original classified annex, specifically, information implicating Turkish private entities in certain activities directly relating to nuclear proliferation. Consequently, the Agreement was not submitted to the Congress and the executive branch undertook a review of the NPAS evaluation.[The Bush] Administration has completed the NPAS review as well as an evaluation of actions taken by the Turkish government to address the proliferation activities of certain Turkish entities (once officials of the U.S. Government brought them to the Turkish government's attention). The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Energy, and the members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are confident that the pertinent issues have been sufficiently resolved and that there is a sufficient basis (as set forth in the classified annexes, which will be transmitted separately by the Secretary of State) to proceed with congressional review of the Agreement and, if legislation is not enacted to disapprove it, to bring the Agreement into force (Italics added).
The letter of transmittal is obliquely referring to the apparent involvement of Turkish private companies in A. Q. Kahn's proliferation network. (My understanding is that none of these private entities were sanctioned.)
For an interesting essay on Kahn's international network, see Bruno Tertrais' essay, "Kahn's Nuclear Exports: Was There a State Strategy?" in Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War.
Posted by Robert at January 24, 2008 8:25 AM